It was with a clear vision of providing private companies and public agencies access to precise measurements and trustworthy, data based analysis, that RÁK Ocean Engineering was founded. Enabling them to fully understand the exact influence of submerged equipment on life beneath the surface.
RÁK – Faroese for ‘current’ – has specialized in getting to the bottom of complex matters. Detecting and visualizing deep lying ocean parameters. This involves physical measurements, analysis of data and computational simulation to address what impact equipment has on a given location and whether the equipment can in fact handle the occasionally brutal conditions in the Atlantic Ocean.
The techniques and skills we harness here in the Faroe Islands can be put to use all over the world. Especially, in sites with extreme weather conditions. In that sense, RÁK’s home base is almost optimal. When you have grown up in the environment, you kind of get the feel of it, Ph.D. Heini Winthereig Rasmussen, founder and CEO of RÁK, says.
Looking slightly ahead, knowledge of sub sea level factors can become highly valuable for the North Atlantic isles.
There is tremendous potential for the Faroe Islands in the use of marine technology. Hopefully, we are close to significant breakthroughs within aquaculture at exposed sites, wave energy, offshore wind and tidal energy. Truly exciting possibilities, Heini says.
Following a Master’s degree in Civil Engineering (Solid Mechanics), Heini worked in plant and process construction support in the oil industry in Denmark, performing calculations on machinery and equipment such as pressure vessels for refineries. However, without actively seeking to change his line of work, he found himself stepping onto a new path.
Specialist by choice, Ph.D. by coincidence
Heini hadn’t thought about becoming a researcher, until at an event for Faroese expats in Copenhagen he was introduced to Fiskaaling, a part public-part private entity in the Faroe Islands researching, developing and advising within biotechnology and the farming of water-based animals and plants. The company was looking for a Ph.D.-student to anchor a research project focused on salmon farming.
I was intrigued. My job at that time had become slightly repetitive, a bit too much like working at a conveyor belt. But there was still a lot to think over. I hadn’t previously seen myself as a potential researcher and although a lot of changes were occurring in my native Faroe Islands, most of my friends were living abroad, studying or working, and I hadn’t fully envisioned moving back home, Heini says.
But the pull of the deep sea prevailed and in 2012 Heini was the first ever industrial Ph.D. student to be enrolled in the University of the Faroe Islands, in a collaboration between Fiskaaling and with funding from Research Council Faroe Islands. As the title indicates, his thesis – Flow Through and Around a Group of Fish Farming Cages – deep dived into how ocean currents affect salmon farming equipment in the sea.
Ocean currents control the ecosystem, supplying oxygen and removing waste material, so through sea measurements and subsequent analysis and computational models, the research project aimed at supplying new ways to improve planning, efficiency and ultimately profitability in the salmon farming industry.
Unlocking the researcher’s commercial potential
Upon completing his thesis, Heini struck a deal with SEV, the inter-municipal power company supplying the 17 inhabited North Atlantic islands with electricity, to evaluate to which effect tidal energy can support SEV’s ambition of relying 100 % on renewable energy sources by 2030. So RÁK was founded. And in the process, Heini tapped into the resources at Tórshavn’s start-up incubator, Hugskotið, for guidance.
How do you start a business? How do you run it? Bookkeeping, marketing, sales. My focus was research, so all of this was new to me, he says.
Along the way, RÁK has received funding through Vinnuframi, a national initiative that provides support to innovative trade and industry projects. And five years on from initially moving into the co-op space on the harbor of the Faroese capital, Heini is still a resident of Hugskotið, bouncing ideas back and forth with other business owners and entrepreneurs and using his network to further develop RÁK.
Heini’s research approach is intact in his work, customers mainly supplied by the salmon industry. He senses, that the benefit of hardcore underwater data as the premise for improved decision-making is really beginning to dawn on the private sector. Or as Heini says, perfectly combining his university background and business acumen in a single sentence:
When you solve a problem through research, a commercial opportunity arises.
