Ten Years. No Manual. No Regrets.
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
A reflection on ten years of Blackfish Engineering
- from the people who built it and the team who helped shape it.
In 2016, three engineers were made redundant doing something we loved (designing tidal stream turbines) and started something with no guarantee of success, no roadmap for running a business, and - as one of them now freely admits - a fairly naïve idea of what they were getting into.
Seventy-five percent of companies never reach ten years.
Blackfish Engineering just did.
They didn't know what they didn't know
Ask the founding directors what surprised them most about building Blackfish, and the answers are disarmingly honest.
"I was surprised at how much non-engineering effort was needed to run a business. Finance, insurance, websites, contracts, IT, HR - it all took a lot of effort."
"I was probably quite naïve about what running a business was all about."
These are not the words of people performing modesty. They are the words of engineers who walked into something genuinely hard and figured it out as they went. Commercial contracts learned at speed. Employer responsibilities taken seriously from day one. Decisions made under real uncertainty, with real consequences.
What kept them going? A mix of things. The work itself - complex, meaningful, always different. The belief that offshore renewable energy mattered and that a small, focused team could contribute to it in ways a large consultancy couldn't. And, over time, something that surprised even them: the team they built around them.
"One thing I have learnt is to trust the team. They will always solve a technical challenge. It is a great process to watch."
What it looks like from the other side
"I wouldn't be here, writing these thoughts, if it wasn't for the hard work, forward-thinking, business-savvy team of directors that took a risk and set up Blackfish. Their drive, leadership skills, attention to detail, ability to plan ahead and - not to downplay - kindness has made Blackfish a secure and genuinely enjoyable place to work."
That is not a quote we prompted or shaped. That is what happens when you give people the space to say what they actually think - and when the culture genuinely earns it.
The work that defines a decade
Ten years of Blackfish is ten years of hard, specific, unglamorous engineering problems - the kind that don't make headlines but make real differences to real technology.
A few that stand out:
When Mocean Energy's BlueX wave energy converter first went into the water, the whole team held their breath. It didn't sink. That moment - the result of years of design work, a painstaking hinge alignment during a COVID-disrupted fabrication process, and a genuine commitment to seeing a client through from concept to deployment - is still talked about.
When the challenge came to develop an offshore electrical vessel charger with MJR Automation (Charge Offshore), the team took a basic concept and delivered a complex electro- and hydro-mechanical system in nine months. From whiteboard to offshore installation support. It went on to demonstrate charging on a live offshore wind farm.
When SenseWind needed engineering support, Blackfish pushed for multi-stage validation testing that the client hadn't initially scoped. It proved critical. That instinct - to advocate for the right process, not just the contracted one - is characteristic of how this team operates.
And then there is C-Dart. What started as a Wave Energy Scotland challenge to design a quick-connect device for wave energy moorings has, through years of iterative development and the team's refusal to stop asking what if we took this further, become a proprietary technology approaching commercialisation across multiple marine sectors. It is, perhaps, the clearest expression of who Blackfish is: a consultancy that couldn't help inventing something.
"We love the fact that we have kept the dream alive of coming up with our own ideas and developing them. It doesn't make for good profitability - but it is really exciting inventing and developing ideas."
What it actually feels like inside
We asked our team what makes Blackfish different. Not what we should say it is - what it actually feels like to work here.
They talked about speed: the ability to speak directly to the person who can answer your question, without three layers of approval in between. They talked about trust: being given real ownership of real problems early. One team member - relatively new to the industry - spoke about being trusted to represent Blackfish at events alone, speaking in front of people from companies many times the size of ours, and being allowed to become their own face in the sector.
They also talked about the engineering itself. The whiteboard sessions. The shared excitement when a new challenge comes in. The way the team will pull together around a problem - sometimes producing an entirely new design concept when a client needs it - not because they have to, but because that is genuinely what they enjoy.
"Our genuine excitement around a new challenge - we love the process of concepting and exploring potential solutions, preferably around a whiteboard, drawing from each other's experiences and ideas. It's what keeps us all interested in engineering."
What we hope stays true
There are plenty of people in the world who work hard and never quite manage to make a lasting difference. Through work with developers including Mocean, SenseWind, MJR and many others, the directors of Blackfish know they have helped contribute to technology that is real, deployed, and improving.
That matters. In a sector working on one of the most important problems of our time, it matters a great deal.
Ten years in, the original instinct that started all of this - that this work is worth doing, and that doing it with honesty, integrity, and genuine technical passion is the right way to do it - has not changed.
Here is to the next ten.
Blackfish Engineering is a Bristol, UK-based engineering consultancy specialising in tidal stream, wave energy, offshore wind and cleantech innovation. Founded in 2016 by Jon Powell, Tim Warren and Ioan Smallwood. https://www.blackfishengineering.com