Inspired by brilliant ideas

Firstly, he says, it’s been a bit like the David and Goliath story helping to get very new technology off the ground, but he was inspired by the founder of InPower, Normann Sandøy. Not, however just by his innovative ideas, but by his sheer stubbornness.

Mr Larsen started of as a technical engineer around the aquaculture and maritime industry, which lead him to meet the person who was to eventually change his career. “I got to know Normann Sandøy when he was still working in the STX Shipyard in Norway. But it wasn’t until a few years later, actually after he retired and while he was testing out his Rim Driven Propulsion system in the same yard that he had worked in, that I came along to watch,” says Mr Larsen. “I found it very, very interesting to see something so new.

“He always asked, ‘Why limit yourself to the known solutions, why not try to go further?’. “He always wanted to try things out, build them himself, test them out and see if they worked.”

After developing the Rim Driven Thrusters with Brunvoll, which now manufactures them, Mr Sandøy then turned his attention to the power drive, and the use of permanent magnets to simplify the power chain, developing the Phi-Drive and asked Mr Larsen to join him. The technology was introduced onto a ferry owned by Fjord1, but there was more work ahead to gain investment.

“Normann’s brilliant ideas really attracted me, but at first when he asked me to be chairman of InPower it had to run alongside my work as a manager with Abas Cranes. During this time my main purpose was to find industry partners such as Lapas AS, Midvest, and Norsk Mineral. By 2010 we had gained enough financial security for me to go ahead and become general manager. This is what I wanted to do more than anything, and besides, it was just too interesting to let go.”

The frustrating part, he says, comes in when trying to break into a market that has been moulded around mainstream solutions. “And although it is good, tested out technology, you always get the problem of who will take final responsibility for the first builds”, he says.

Mr Larsen says he really learned from Normann how much stubbornness is needed. “It’s a long, long way from idea to prototype, and possibly just as long from prototype to market. This propulsion market is very conservative, but if you want to get there you cannot give up, you have to keep on going, and if you believe in it, one day or another, you will get to the success that the technology deserves.”

“Sadly for us, Normann died last year but when the idea is good, it will outlast the man,” says Mr Larsen.