Some business philosophies come from a whiteboard. Ours came from the middle of an ocean, weeks from the nearest port, with nothing but the boat, the crew and whatever energy had been captured and stored along the way.
Oliver Cridge, founder and CEO of Full Power, is a mechanical and marine engineer with more than 30 years of international experience across the maritime, oil and gas, industrial, automotive, HVAC, mining, renewable energy and off-grid power sectors. But it was not a lab or a workshop that shaped his thinking on energy systems. It was the sea itself.
Over the course of his career, Oliver has logged more than 450 days at sea through commercial maritime operations and approximately 15,000 offshore sailing miles through blue-water passages and double-handed sailing. That includes a double-handed trans-Atlantic crossing aboard SV Jubilation from England to Saint Lucia, offshore passages aboard SV Lochmarin through the Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal, and time aboard SV Lacrima through the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.
These were not short coastal hops. Many of these passages meant 20 to 40 days without landfall or shore support, which means complete self-sufficiency in navigation, maintenance, energy management and fault diagnosis. When something breaks a thousand miles from land, you fix it yourself or you live with the consequences.
It was in that environment that a simple but unforgiving equation became clear to Oliver: energy equals safety.
When you are offshore for weeks at a time, energy is one of the most critical resources on board. Every amp-hour used has to be replaced, and every litre of fuel burned to charge batteries is a litre that might be needed later to outrun bad weather, reach shelter or make a safe approach into port. There is no calling for a top-up. What you have on board is what you have.
Much of this understanding came from living with the limitations of traditional lead-acid battery systems and inefficient charging setups. Early passages often meant running generators and engines for long stretches just to keep navigation equipment, communications, refrigeration and other essential systems going. It became obvious how much energy was being wasted, and how directly a vessel's independence depended on how efficiently it could store and use power.
That realisation became a driving passion: capture every available watt, store it as efficiently as possible, and build genuine redundancy into every critical system on board.
It is a philosophy that has since grown well beyond the original boats it was learned on, but the core idea has never changed. Energy is not just a convenience. Managed well, it is what keeps people safe when help is a long way away.
If you are planning a passage, a refit or a project where energy reliability genuinely matters, Full Power would be glad to talk it through with you.