Can we ship containers on autonomous, hydrofoiling speed boats yet? (Max Olson, CEO/Founder, Seachange)

00:00:01: Hello and welcome to the logistics tribe I'm boss felgendreher founder of the logistics tribe

00:00:10: and today we will bring this story of a brilliant mechanical engineer in his 20s named Max Olson who had a crazy idea of how to revolutionize container Transportation on the ocean

00:00:21: as you all know over the last decade or so container vessels have become bigger and bigger to make the transport more cost-efficient but Max or guest on today's program had a totally different idea he set out to design small remote control speed boats

00:00:35: that hydrofoiling across the water in other words they don't sit completely in the water but they basically fly across the water

00:00:43: and those boats would carry three standard size ocean containers from China to the US West Coast in less than five days and that's much faster than the 15 days that the journey takes with a normal container ship,

00:00:54: how Max came up with this crazy idea how the Prototype looks like.

00:00:58: And if his idea has any chance of becoming a viable business all of that and more is covered in this episode of the logistics tribe super fascinating,

00:01:07: Today's Show is hosted by John McIntyre enjoy Max let's just go back in time you and me are sitting on a.

00:01:16: Bench and you're thinking of an idea.

00:01:18: For a new business at that time we were sitting there and you said hey have you ever seen hydrofoiling like in the American Cup.

00:01:27: And I said no and so then you started explaining it to me maybe you can just explain to everybody so we start with the right context what is hydrofoiling.

00:01:36: Where might they have seen it yeah hydrofoil is a wing that operates under water and is attached to a boat.

00:01:44: And it lifts the boat free of the water and reduces its drag and make some very efficient.

00:01:52: Efficient and fast boat and something that gets used extensively in Saline,

00:01:58: hey got used for a number of years for passenger craft and sort of 70s and 80s but is really just made a comeback in the last.

00:02:08: 10 years in the last 10 years does make me feel a bit old but yes the sort of.

00:02:15: Way to make much faster much more efficient boats and when you say it makes boat's faster and efficient so.

00:02:24: Hopefully the people who are listening to this take a second and we'll go Google hydrofoils but when you see a boat that begins hydrofoiling.

00:02:33: So let's start with sailboats which is at the time that was the only thing that I could picture my mind when we were describing this.

00:02:40: A sailboat that hydrofoils it essentially,

00:02:44: is flying right lifts out of the water yeah it's as close to Flying as you can get without actually flying yeah yeah and the kind of kind of reinforce that you know the first thing that goes through your mind.

00:02:57: If you're not a sailor I suppose the first thing that goes through your mind is well you know boats going to go as fast as the wind but that's not the case right narr these sailboats you going.

00:03:06: Several times faster than the wind essentially you you make these boats so efficient that wind power can,

00:03:14: for Parliament that yes several times the speed of the wind but when we were talking about this I think the reason that we sat down on the Park Bench was,

00:03:22: it was not because he wanted to make sailboats you wanted to make a container ship so you want that you had an idea that.

00:03:30: A container ship could hydrofoil you could take a container ship have it go super fast.

00:03:37: And pull it up essentially out of the water so it's skimming the water I think you described it at the time of Imagine putting a jet engine.

00:03:45: On a container ship and instead of it just plowing through the water it's sort of skimming the water as it hydrofoils yeah it sort of started with.

00:03:57: Frustration for me.

00:04:00: Around importing batteries I mean we were at the time both living in New Zealand Jonah in New Zealand everything everything we have got here by a boat or by a plane.

00:04:14: We were having huge issues at the company I was at importing.

00:04:19: Like lithium batteries like 16 sorry 18 18 650 cells essentially there were two things going on,

00:04:28: the reason for this sorry is that the Galaxy Notes you know the phones were blowing up on planes and suddenly there was a huge Crackdown on the shipping of lithium batteries,

00:04:38: and yes I was a huge issue and essentially they were two ways I started talking to the supplies and there were two ways you could get batteries into New Zealand one was you know waiting 10 weeks.

00:04:50: Putting them in a container putting them in the in the belly space of a container ship while out of direct sunlight where a stet nice and temperature stable and should be the most dangerous goods that way.

00:05:02: And the other way was to put them in an email packet and lie.

00:05:08: And don't tell anyone that they were better he's in there and hope that nobody realized but because the supply was limited it was the sort of like.

00:05:18: This game of were you cool enough and will you good enough friends with the supplier that they would lie on your behalf,

00:05:27: and did they want to wear their risk for you and so yeah became this quite weird quite weird game where you had to befriend the supplier for them to lie on your behalf to bring batteries in and sell them to you which was quite.

00:05:41: Quite a big shift compared to what we were used to and for context for context of anyone you know I'm here who are listening.

00:05:49: It's not like you were a battery wholesaler right you were in another locked of business and you simply wanted batteries to run your.

00:05:58: Your other product business which we can talk about later and so so having these options you had air and ocean.

00:06:06: Ocean obviously much much slower as well.

00:06:10: Especially for New Zealand in the New Zealand context that is that's not a primary tradelines so that's not a that's not laying way where you have the.

00:06:18: Boats departing every day in both directions so so how did you get from that to yeah I'm going to build a speedboat.

00:06:28: I'm going to build a speedboat using technology that's sort of sort of known and known I mean one of the things I want to I want to talk about in a second is,

00:06:38: you mentioned hydrofoiling been known for a while and there were some there were some commercial hydrofoiling vessels in the 70s or 80s,

00:06:47: but but no one who's listening this podcast is going to have ridden on one of those I think so you know what what's the what's yeah what was the key thing that made it possible then,

00:07:01: then people stopped and now you say or you said that the time hey let's let's build these,

00:07:07: jet yeah Jets on the water yeah at the time our and I try to minimize this.

00:07:15: In my head I think but you know the reality was that the America's Cup was on at the time and the America's Cup is a battle of hydrofoiling yachts.

00:07:27: You know with its the as the oldest sporting trophy in the world I think and you know it was kind of ass like moment of yeah how efficient.

00:07:37: These boats So what had happened is hydrofoils hydrofoils where there were huge in there.

00:07:43: As 60s 70s and 80s and there is old as time you know so Alexander Graham Bell held the water speed record on a hydrofoil and like 1908.

00:07:57: As well please it's like it's so yeah like that's that's.

00:08:06: That's a while ago,

00:08:08: and then they made this big suit is a sort of like this early early a whole bunch of old tiny and enters when I played around and hydrofoils died,

00:08:17: came back 60 70s into like military and then bowing made a hydrofoil that operates Hong Kong Macau some you are.

00:08:25: Listeners might have ridden on one of those oh yeah I wrote on them yeah growing up and I grew up to spend four years in Hong Kong,

00:08:34: and I remember that the hydrofoils there but essentially the theory was you know we can build the hydrofoil,

00:08:41: you know the hydrofoils themselves and the boats were like entirely Elementium are made out of like,

00:08:47: either CNC cat or like folded plate element and hydrofoils the shapes they could produce of the foils themselves like the wing profiles were you know just like.

00:08:59: Glorified rectangles and they did you know for the tools of the time.

00:09:05: My word incredible designs that they pulled together but they were heavy.

00:09:12: They weren't very efficient and I said a compensated by just you know let's go grab a gas turbine from a plane.

00:09:20: And put it on the air we'll just we'll just if we just pour enough g day one and it and the boat will the boat will go,

00:09:29: and I think I think here it's probably because for many of the podcast listeners they'll come from a heavy engineering background,

00:09:37: it may just to reiterate in case you haven't yet Googled what the heck is a hydrofoiling boat yep you're talking about we say the wings and you talked with it literally is when I picture these hydrofoiling boats it literally is a normal boat.

00:09:51: Then it's got a kind of a stilt Strat yeah strut exactly strut that goes into the water may be at multiple points for stability,

00:10:00: and then under the water it's got these,

00:10:03: wings like an airplane and you're describing the wing shape because the I liken the airplanes the the flow Dynamic around the wings must be extremely important for efficiency and lift and everything,

00:10:14: you are essentially flying through water but with I presume like much less drag because you don't have the hole.

00:10:23: On the rough surface of the water dealing with the waves and everything you've got.

00:10:28: This Wing shape attached to a strut that's below that that choppy surface that's moving through,

00:10:36: through the water is that is that right yeah that's actually that's an excellent description and yeah that the Dynamics are exactly like a wing through the year but because your water is a thousand times denser than the ear,

00:10:50: the wing is.

00:10:52: A thousand times smaller so you get away with a very small winged doing creating a lot of lift and yeah that's below the water.

00:11:01: And it makes you like a fast boat and efficient boat and you clear most of your drag on a boat at doing 35 knots plus 60 kilometers per hour.

00:11:14: Yeah that speed 60 kilometers per hour you get most of your drag on the boat comes from.

00:11:21: Skin friction you know let that friction between the hull of the boat,

00:11:26: and the water so yeah you say you that that boat clear of the water and suddenly it's got a lot less drag you just have this very small foil running beneath the water and a really small sort of,

00:11:37: surface of influence between the water and the foil and the rest of the boat.

00:11:42: So yes sets up on stilts and that we call struts mmm okay

00:11:48: so let's say we go back get let's get the trajectory here so this is what 2017 so we set in this park bench and a couple of things that really struck me and you know one of the reasons I want to call out your surgeon story here,

00:12:02: is for the for the three years afterwards for years now,

00:12:07: after that when people ask me oh what's something interesting happening in supply chain what's an interesting start up that should take a look at.

00:12:13: Brought your startup up of yours was the go-to name for me so here are the reasons why and then we'll move on the first is.

00:12:22: The startup world is chock-a-block full with.

00:12:27: A software attacking some space which was previously done manually or partially by software yeah that's that's sort of 99.9 percent of the startups,

00:12:38: well when we sat down you wanted to build a big boat and you didn't really know what you're going to do with the boat right,

00:12:45: that that I found fascinating where you you sort of had this view of I think I built this boat and if I could.

00:12:54: Wouldn't that be commercially interesting but that was a question mark like wouldn't that be commercially interesting right.

00:13:00: And then and then the second thing and then the the second the second thing that was that was fascinating about this this potential start-up is that,

00:13:10: even the hardware startups in supply chain tend to be RFID devices they tend to be sortation devices and warehouses Material Handling,

00:13:19: kit or maybe self driving trucks all of which are sort of small kit or small kit supplied to a large you know a large device this is more like the equivalent of building a new airplane,

00:13:31: or building an entirely new form of Transport with profound consequences for the supply chain space which I also want to talk about the second so,

00:13:40: it just to close off this origin story,

00:13:42: when you decided to do it what was the sequence of things you wanted to prove out between I have an idea and this will be a viable business like old good Hardware startups it started with a spreadsheet.

00:13:57: Of how efficient does the boat have to be,

00:14:02: - split the difference between yossi Freight and here for and that's weird I was positioning the business was afraid too much regulation too much too much cost.

00:14:14: Great for Speed c48 the Wild West.

00:14:18: As I found out more and more as I sort of dug into the market of building his boats and regulation light and very low cost in you.

00:14:30: What is the what is this sort of the bounds of the engineering problem that make this a viable alternative somewhere between those two options.

00:14:40: And you're for me I'm a mechanical engineer as like well there is the his the bounds does a hydrofoil sit between them yeah hydrofoiling boat is something like.

00:14:51: I could do it and then from spreadsheet who do I know in.

00:14:57: The freight game Jonah my next door neighbor so so maybe now if we could turn because most of the most Logistics tribe listeners right they come from a logistics background.

00:15:09: And this is where I think this starts to get really fascinating so let's just play out let's play with the consequences for a seconds play out what it would look like.

00:15:18: Your boat how many containers would it carries we were talking about three.

00:15:25: 40-foot container got it so three 40-foot containers on a on a boat that would be able to get give give me some sort of Transit time.

00:15:34: Expectation from say China to the US yes oh sort of like.

00:15:41: 45 knots you could get Shanghai LAX and you know it's like five days.

00:15:50: Absolutely shoot across the ocean because in missions is becoming quite important in the industry the intention of these were battery-operated right Gnar initially it was it was diesel

00:16:01: there's no way to get battery

00:16:02: okay across that sort of distance but if you're worried about emissions don't put it on a plane put it on a hydrofoiling boat got it oh sorry last point,

00:16:12: given that it's three containers it's presumably a much smaller boat that means it doesn't need to go to a major port like Long Beach right it can be unloaded at,

00:16:22: Pat potentially much much smaller yes we were running and we still are actually and what we do at the moment is that your.

00:16:31: You run into it and infrastructure light business and you're not reliant on big ports we could use secondary ports and and the sort of like then the winner takes all structure that ports were sort of developing with you.

00:16:44: Big cranes more Wharf space to accept larger boats we could make use of the smaller ports yeah right down to it,

00:16:53: I've remote GT would be enough to load one of these little three container ships we don't need the dip through we don't need the wharf length we don't need the big cranes.

00:17:03: Yeah just yeah it's it's a freight on the water for the audience that people who are listening who come from Logistics background I'm hoping that lights are kind of going off in their mind now,

00:17:13: this was the other reason besides just the boldness of the vision of hey I'm going to build a business around this new enormous piece of hardware.

00:17:22: And I'll if it works there's great commercial applications if it doesn't work force.

00:17:27: We won't do it the other thing that I found super fascinating about your business Max was that.

00:17:33: The dis would entirely disrupt and change the Dynamics of ocean container shipping because ocean container shipping has been at this race to economy of scale where you build,

00:17:44: greater and greater capacity vessels.

00:17:48: Until they essentially until they totally max out the canal paths at like Panama or Suez.

00:17:55: So you end up with super ports served by super boats which are fighting each other and kind of a price war did to consolidate the industry and then you come along and say,

00:18:05: as a quite an outsider right say hey I think I'm going to make a speed boat like make a speed boat that can take three containers.

00:18:15: To any port.

00:18:17: And it'll do it at a fraction of air freight costs at an adult Transit time that's just a bit larger longer than than are free,

00:18:26: very fascinating can you just real quickly talk about how you would have when your mind how your thing about these would be deployed because.

00:18:33: You essentially were thinking swarms right you were thinking very large volumes that these boats yeah like I think the thing to take into the air is that a traditional non hydrofoiling boat,

00:18:43: runs on you know what would call like a cube law we're if you double the length of the boat the volume of the boat goes up by.

00:18:54: 2 ^ 3 but the surface area of the boat which is most of the drag goes up by 2 to the power of 2 and so volume in the boat and escapes.

00:19:07: The dragons so inevitably the boats get bigger and bigger and bigger.

00:19:12: Yeah there's also some some crowing yo considerations and there but just in sort of an energy in energy out basis.

00:19:21: Really big displacement is a displacement non hydrofoiling votes makes sense from a fuel perspective hydrofoiling breaks that relationship if you double the weight you're carrying.

00:19:35: I'm you also double your drag so suddenly you don't have this Escape of you know volume and weight,

00:19:42: away from efficiency and so small boats make

00:19:46: equally as much sense as large boats and then if we sort of cast our minds into the future and we think about the prospects of autonomous ships and then soak ring requirements no longer dictate.

00:19:58: The efficiency of both saw the economic efficiency of boats and then we have the situation where very large swarms of boats.

00:20:07: Performing point-to-point operations with relatively small payloads,

00:20:12: very efficient way on hydrofoils starts to look like this whole new way to move Freight around the world uncrewed autonomous hydrofoiling little container ships,

00:20:26: yeah three can take three containers or something zipping around in point-to-point move so not not in a now than a traditional,

00:20:34: container boats a path where with try to call on multiple ports to load it unload in a kind of a rotational sequence your boats would be going essentially direct right you don't have a crew,

00:20:49: Manning those three containers it's yeah review station someplace that's mandating a hundred of the boats in it remotely by watching.

00:20:57: Absolute that you start with a you start with a crude boat a human as a fairly cheap computer.

00:21:03: To get going yeah I believe Nick yeah but I believe NASA used to in the in the 50s now see is to describe the the cheapest hundred and fifty pounds mass produced.

00:21:16: I computer and robot was a human being and yeah so yeah you start with a crude crude system and then so yeah if you can

00:21:25: if you can change the fuel in energy out relationship and you can change the crew in

00:21:31: service out relationship suddenly you can build large small but swarms of small boats instead of doing hub-and-spoke.

00:21:39: I believe was the term you were looking for searching your mind or really digging deep and turn it into a point-to-point service trying to cut down,

00:21:52: on X and create efficiencies you beyond just the hydrofoil creating efficiencies in just taking things where they actually need to go instead of

00:22:02: near where they need to go yeah seems and still seems like a great a great thing to do

00:22:07: yeah I'm getting hyped by it now so then so then that was 2017 in the intervening years you began to build out demonstration versions of the hardware that was necessary,

00:22:18: just for the sake of time can you identify one or two spooky.

00:22:22: Moments that for you in the as you were building out the kind of first a prototype version than the larger prototype version Etc keep key moments II came to you Jonah to talk me out of what I was about to do.

00:22:35: And you failed it takes you just encouraged really emboldened me to carry on and so yeah built which should be a lesson that to anybody right I actually say this and I'll seriousness,

00:22:50: other people around you will will encourage you to do.

00:22:53: Stupid business is really like that no I haven't had this I've had this experience where you go to people I say I think about starting the business and have it all that's that's a you should do that you should follow your dreams as a great idea,

00:23:05: and then know when you start the business and you go back to him say hey maybe be a customer,

00:23:10: and their own ah yeah I don't think I really need that you know hey like I started six months ago when I bought you lunch it's a it's a great idea,

00:23:20: so you got convinced so you got convinced to do it and then what was the next big milestone these meatiness in the middle

00:23:28: but if we could just cut to I raised small,

00:23:32: a small seed round to go and build the first prototype which was it like a 1/10 scale it was just crazy crazy little boat.

00:23:43: Which we affectionately knew as beer fish that it was roughly three and a half meters long you know 1/10 scale would then make that,

00:23:52: 35 meters long at full scale it was driven by electric motors develop their own flight controller you build a flight controller to stabilize it use the tandem,

00:24:06: attend mm foil set up which is like you have.

00:24:10: Two foils which are identical in that directly in line and then it balances a lot like a motorcycle or a bicycle we are sort of just.

00:24:20: Steers itself to keep it upright it looked absolutely unreal right on the water it was incredible we scared a lot of locals out on,

00:24:30: like will harvest when we were out testing it,

00:24:32: and it totally worked and it worked exactly as we expected it to and so that was sort of prototype yeah for people listening try to imagine you go out on you go out on your boat sailing someday and then a joyful

00:24:45: a group of pack of like young people come by with a three and a half meter long hydrofoiling remote control boat.

00:24:55: That's going at presumably pretty fast right yeah like a good a good clip like 30 30 plus not see you knows you're talking you know fifty fifty five k's an hour.

00:25:08: Which is fast on the water yeah that doesn't feel that fast in your car but something of a sort of that size it's remote-controlled like,

00:25:16: yeah we used to we used to joke about the punters the punters been out in their fishing boats.

00:25:23: I've and then they just sort of thing on the water that looks vaguely like a submarine.

00:25:28: I'm and it sort of stopped by and for some reason sorry that I didn't think hey I should keep my distance from this thing they thought hey I'll see how close I can get to this to see what it is,

00:25:40: and so we did take great pleasure in just absolutely launch in it.

00:25:46: Out of the water onto its hydrofoils very.

00:25:52: Well it's somewhat some might not considered to be a safe distance from these from these panties of it we're growing we have matured since,

00:26:03: yeah it's a three and a half meter like hydrofoiling remote control boat

00:26:07: going really fast it must be really cool so okay so you got through you got through scale you got through the the 1/10 scale and then what came next yep another scale models that was 110,

00:26:17: and we went to 1/4 so it's a and the 1/10 scale was sort of 200 kilograms three and a half meters to,

00:26:28: we had a revisit we used all the data we captured from that prototype and said you know what's the what's the sensible way to build this boat so we went from a monohull boat to a to a small catamaran.

00:26:41: We built it at 6 meters long one ton and change the foil layout from attending layout to a Canard layout,

00:26:52: maybe you've got some engineers in the mix here who would understand those things beseech the Cunard layout is a large foil near the AFT of the boat and a smaller hydrofoil at the front that acts as the sort of stabilizer to the whole system,

00:27:07: which is a reasonably efficient way to build a hydrofoil

00:27:10: and whilst retaining stability so we you know we sort of Revisited we let took what would learn took the data and made a much larger prototype.

00:27:20: At this 1/4 scale okay so now you're really scaring your neighbors.

00:27:25: You've got ya one ton you have a one ton of a 1-ton 6 meter Plus.

00:27:34: Remote control speed boat that you're zipping around in and I think because you've got a pivot coming here.

00:27:41: What was the moment when the pivot became started become clearer so for people who are like.

00:27:45: Listening in and thinking what you mean a pivot well today you're not you you're not still focused on container transport you're looking at roll on and passenger Ferries.

00:27:59: And so can you just describe how that shift in Focus because it sounds like you got through two stages of pretty hard engineering,

00:28:07: yeah so I think like there's a few things that happened one is that all of our prototypes where.

00:28:14: Electric and we fell in love with building electric hydrofoils so on a technology front,

00:28:23: Richie got very good at building these electric boats and suddenly the thought of putting diesel on the boats seemed a lot.

00:28:31: Lace like what we should be doing to I mean the supply chains seen an international Freight right now is very different,

00:28:40: then it was sort of nine months ago 12 months ago and we were making this switch so I excuse me I will only describe it.

00:28:51: In the ways that it looked at the time.

00:28:54: Margins with very thin when we were talking to the customers that we would roll out with.

00:29:02: One of the huge overarching concerns was.

00:29:06: I like resilience of the network and so to have a single boat operating on a thousand kilometer route.

00:29:15: Running twice a day.

00:29:17: Was I want today was actually not substantially better so what we were realizing is that we needed several boats operating from day dot.

00:29:29: To create a service that people wanted the roots were long the certification process was very hard,

00:29:37: we had to burn diesel

00:29:39: to get it done there was a lot pointing towards a capital intensive project to go from our current prototype to our operational model and there was a lot of unproven ground to cover,

00:29:52: you be Capital intensive company in a capital intensive industry,

00:29:57: but you'd be against people who are capital capital heavy you know people who are either state-backed like some of the Asian lines or you would be against people like mayor score.

00:30:08: A significant fraction of a country's economy.

00:30:12: At their headquarters yeah and we had solutely immense absolutely and and,

00:30:19: the margins of that business were enough to make it work but they weren't enough to necessarily as like a starting point to break in.

00:30:31: They just went they weren't there yeah the margins were just just too thin to make it all put together and then yes occasionally I would.

00:30:41: Shake my fist at our initial conversation Jonah and say you know.

00:30:47: Why why didn't you tell me this what why in the world did you know each other make it sound positive.

00:30:55: Yeah yeah I was undercover say should I believe in our conversation my view was you can work out the commercials later if you can if you can make such a boat you can either sell it to those companies,

00:31:06: you can start your own shipping line or you can't or you can,

00:31:11: can license the design but then again I just go back to my earlier comment never trust by standard opinion you know by standards like yeah that would be really exciting if you haven't convinced me.

00:31:23: Not to do it you would have also been wrong so either way.

00:31:28: You were wrong and I was right so yeah and so we started looking at this with obviously made huge inroads on the technology,

00:31:38: would build our own flight controllers we built our own hydrofoils like we were small startup team laying up our own carbon fiber,

00:31:47: hydrofoiling and Donaire own actuators and programming flight computers,

00:31:54: building electrical systems building battery packs and motors and like we were pretty,

00:32:02: across-the-board doing a lot of stuff fairly multi-talented yeah so you built a but what was interesting about your the moment of your pivot was as any good start up.

00:32:13: It was not abandonment of the entirety right what you'd been working on you had,

00:32:18: sequentially validated hypotheses you had for example can't we build such about right you'd sequentially validated those things and you had established expertise.

00:32:29: And sort of resource and skill and intellectual property within your within your team you just found a stronger

00:32:36: business so maybe tell us about what that business focus is right now right so right now with building rope X theories car theories again relatively small at 40 meters

00:32:49: long carrying 20 cars and a hundred 50 passengers

00:32:53: across Roots up to 200 kilometers in length and yeah that was that that was the big change so what we realized is some of these Rotex Roots have running them with a hydrofoiling high-speed Theory as a good margin business,

00:33:07: start with a single boat.

00:33:11: We could start locally here in New Zealand and we could reuse a lot of this technology that would be building and I've gotten really good at building

00:33:20: and turn it into something that was actually far more consumer-focused something that excited people something that excited.

00:33:29: Are employees and yes I went from being like quite hard to sort of develop the business towards the market to Bean.

00:33:40: Very easy things that were coming you know hard for Twins were becoming easy wins.

00:33:46: Essentially around this shift to rope X varies.

00:33:51: We started building the most incredible team and for some reason the thought of put in cars and passengers on an electric hydrofoiling,

00:34:01: and it riding four meters above the waves on these long straps as stilts as you described them captures people's imaginations far more than a freight ship.

00:34:14: Yeah is that a 15 Civ no no it's not a fence so that that's that's the irony of the logistics industry is that it permeates and supports the entire economy.

00:34:24: But it's for all intents and purposes it's ignored by everyone who uses it and that's okay you know I ignore for example,

00:34:32: the plumbing in my house the fact that delivers me.

00:34:35: Clean water on demand that the temperature I want it that's a good thing that was a problem that was solved by Society a long time ago and I don't have to think about it so I can go on to solve the next set of problems I think Logistics is right at the cusp of that of,

00:34:49: most people don't think the industry participants think about most people don't think about it.

00:34:53: And you're not hiring logicians you're hiring Engineers you're hiring commercial sales people they can get excited about.

00:35:02: A theory that their friends and their family can ride on you know like you said huge fairy right for you're talking about the you're taking orders right now for 40 meter long fairies.

00:35:13: That are going to ride four meters above the water above the waves in like Zip across

00:35:19: cool right I can I can understand how Engineers excited about that yeah just to kind of close things off maybe maybe talk about the state of your business right now you mentioned you had a great team tell us a little bit about that and then we can we can kind of close with,

00:35:31: from your perspective do you think that that future that container.

00:35:35: Shipping side is that something that is sort of just ruled out for you is that something you think someone else will do but it's it's sort of.

00:35:44: You know someone else's mission is it just not the right time but the engineering will eventually.

00:35:50: Make it so what's your perspective there when I was starting this business I was lusting after you know the engineers that made these America's Cup yachts and then in the last sort of six months.

00:36:04: We've been from Gone From A company that lasted after such Engineers to a company that hired them so now we are.

00:36:12: A team of Engineers who come from you know an Emirates Team New Zealand from American magic another Syndicate article racing

00:36:20: virgin hyperloop got people who do illiterate theories already got project manager from

00:36:29: the Apple watch we have this most like incredible team who all just absolutely driven.

00:36:36: To turn the vision into reality we hired the you know the first engineer at wish who is atoning for his sins.

00:36:47: And selling very low quality Goods.

00:36:52: By building very high quality boats so that's like that's been a massive change in terms of will we be back to Freight yeah we're building these 40 meter hydrofoiling.

00:37:04: Kaffir he's at the moment and that's awesome and yeah that's a.

00:37:11: Billion Dollar Plus Market to tackle for us but eventually the technology will become such that our original hypothesis around this Freight Market will become viable.

00:37:24: Again as far as we're concerned at the moment we've got a lot of work to do and the Rope X base that we can make it.

00:37:31: Yes the most of meats impact on providing you high speed emissions free.

00:37:37: Incredibly comfortable transport floating above the waves.

00:37:41: And so we're totally focused there right now yeah it's super exciting I have to say just to close off it's also personally super exciting to see how you've developed this potential business,

00:37:54: and the,

00:37:55: amazing things I think you're going to get up to in the rest of your career so for people who are who been listening to this they're probably thinking that you know this is a very much a mid to late career

00:38:06: engineer do you mind me asking how old are you I'm 28 years old I had,

00:38:12: thus far failed to have a real job outside of University so I left yeah versity.

00:38:19: I'm was at halter building dairy cow colors left there and have since been running seachange

00:38:26: it's amazing I appreciate you coming on I know I learned a lot the story sort of only at the beginning there's a lot more to be said well some thanks so much for having me Joanna great to talk all right thanks very much bye bye,

00:38:38: all right that was the logistics try podcast episode with Max Olson the CEO and founder of seachange I hope you enjoyed Today's Show.

00:38:47: If so please subscribe to the logistics tribe podcast so you don't miss any of the future episodes on both felgendreher until next time.