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The last update from Hydrastorm was from Ocean Tech Expo in June. Looking back, it would be easy to think not much has happened since then. The reality is that a great deal has moved forward, but much of it has been the less visible work needed to turn an idea and a set of tank tests into something that can be properly assessed, developed and eventually put on the water. The current UK patent application for MPVXX has been completed and filed in Hydrastorm Technologies’ name.

A year ago, MPVXX was little more than a question. Could internal flow management influence propulsion behaviour in ways that conventional marine propulsion architectures largely ignore? What followed was a six-month Innovate UK-funded research programme through Hydrastorm Technologies, exploring the interaction between flow conditioning, controlled geometry and propulsion performance within a compact marine system. The project moved from concept sketches and CAD models to ph

I’ve always walked a slightly different path. A great deal of that comes down to dyslexia. As a child, I wasn’t diagnosed—I was simply labelled as a little slow, unable to read confidently aloud and prone to struggling with long words. It was only well into my Royal Navy career that somebody finally gave it a name. By then, I had already developed my own ways of processing information, solving problems and communicating under pressure. Something changed when I moved further i

When I wrote my first blog about this project, it was mostly intent. An idea. A challenge to conventional thinking. A belief that marine propulsion didn’t have to stay locked in the same patterns forever. Since then, the idea has been through something every engineer understands well. Reality. Over the past months the Hydrastorm propulsion architecture moved from sketches and CAD models to a working experimental platform. Components were printed, rebuilt, adjusted, and tested

A few days after leaving the Royal Navy, I found myself in unfamiliar waters. The transition to civilian life was disorienting - no watch rotations, no real mission, just long nights and a browser full of tabs. I’d stay up late, falling into YouTube black holes, watching documentaries on vessels, engineering marvels, and tactical design breakthroughs. One night, I stumbled across a video that changed everything: Juliet Marine’s GHOST. A SWATH vessel with reversed props, gas

Marc Reffell or "Ref" as he was known to his shipmates, served in the Royal Navy from 1999 to 2025, rising to Chief Petty Officer across three distinct trades: Communications, Intelligence, and Engineering. His career spanned deployments in the Gulf, Mediterranean, Falklands, Afghanistan, and Libya, with operational roles aboard HMS Bulldog, Cornwall, Roebuck, Ocean, Bulwark, Northumberland, and St Albans. Camp Leatherneck 2010 A graduate of the All-Arms Commando Course, Marc