Tidetech was featured in the Australian International Marine Export Group (AIMEX)/Australian Commercial Marine Group (ACMG) annual directory, launched at Metstrade 2025 in Amsterdam. Here's the story...
It began with a USB stick at the Sydney to Hobart. Today, Tidetech is a global force in ocean intelligence — a niche company in Tasmania carving a surprisingly wide wake.
For Tidetech managing director Penny Haire, the mission has always been clear: make the ocean understandable, and usable.
“You can open your phone and see the weather anywhere in the world,” she said.
“But if you want to know what the tide’s doing at your beach — or what the ocean’s doing anywhere — that’s still surprisingly hard.”
Tidetech set out to change that.
From dockside to data-driven
The company began in 2008 as a partnership between Haire and world-renowned oceanographer Dr Roger Proctor. Together, they paired deep scientific expertise with real-world maritime experience. Haire, a former professional sailor and navigation trainer, recognised the gap: high-quality ocean data existed, but it wasn’t accessible to the people who needed it most.
Their first test case was elite sailing. Ahead of the 2008 Sydney to Hobart race, Tidetech produced a digital dataset of the East Australian Current and loaded it onto USB sticks. Haire walked the docks, handing them to navigators.
The result? Fifteen boats used the data. The two winners — line honours and handicap — among them.
That moment launched Tidetech into the world of performance sailing. From there, they became a trusted supplier for international campaigns, including the 2011–12 Volvo Ocean Race — a gruelling round-the-world competition where ocean currents can make or break a leg — and as a technical supplier to the 34th America’s Cup in San Francisco. They sold their data package to the whole event — all the teams, the race director, TV coverage, commentators and umpires used it.
“That was a big win,” Haire said, “It gave us good visibility.”
From racers to cruise ships
It was coverage of the Volvo campaign that proved a turning point. As the team delivered complex data products for ocean currents, they caught the attention of Carnival, the cruise line operator.
“Carnival got very interested in our data for the Caribbean and the Gulf Stream because they have a lot of vessels operating there,” Haire said.
“Over time, we gradually got yacht racing software onto some cruise ships as that was the only way they could use the data at the time. It led to us meeting the manufacturers of their bridge equipment and we worked to get the data directly into their systems.”
From there, the business evolved quickly. With global shipping under pressure to cut fuel use, emissions and transit times, accurate ocean data became a valuable new lever for optimisation. Tidetech delivered high-resolution tidal models for key choke points like the Malacca and Singapore Straits, enabling ships to time their passage with the tide and save both fuel and money in the process.
Today: science meets application
From racing yachts to cruise liners, port authorities to hydrographic offices, Tidetech’s data is now used around the world. The company offers detailed modelling of ocean and tidal currents, sea surface temperature, salinity and other physical properties of seawater, all through an operational lens.
“Our job is to turn science into something you can use on the bridge of a ship, in a port’s planning software, or in your routing model,” Haire said.
“It’s not just about having the best data, it’s about getting it into the right format, in the right place, for the right use case.”
What sets Tidetech apart is this focus on application. The team includes world-leading scientists, developers and maritime specialists who understand not just how to build ocean models, but how to embed them into real-world systems — from recreational navigation software to onboard electronic chart display and information systems (ECDIS).
One milestone that quietly marked Tidetech’s global reach came when asked to create a tidal height app for a large technology company in 2023.
“This company wanted to build a tidal height app for one of its consumer devices,” Haire said.
“We suggested we could provide seamless coverage of tides everywhere in the world — not just at ports, which is what most people have, but a continuous surface of tidal height data, every nautical mile along the coast and out to around 20 miles offshore.”
The model blends satellite observations with tide gauge data to generate a globally consistent picture. “It takes a fair bit of IP and know-how to pull together,” she said.
“But the customer was happy — and the data is now running in a dedicated app that’s been live for about a year.”
The next wave: S-100 and the digital sea
Looking forward, Tidetech is positioning itself at the forefront of a major global shift — the adoption of S-100, the new universal standard for digital maritime data exchange.
Developed by the International Hydrographic Organisation (IHO), S-100 is set to revolutionise how navigational and ocean data is shared, visualised and used. It replaces outdated formats with a modern, extensible framework — one that allows for dynamic, layered, high-resolution data products on the bridge of every ship.
And Tidetech is ready.
“We’ve been preparing for S-100 for a while,” Haire said. “It allows for seamless integration of oceanographic data into navigation systems — not just charts, but currents, tides, wave models.”
For a company that’s always lived at the intersection of science and software, it’s a natural evolution. S-100 adoption will standardise what Tidetech has been doing all along — but it also opens the door to wider adoption, broader interoperability, and even regulatory uptake.
“We’re not a data company in the abstract,” Haire said. “We’re here to help people make better decisions at sea — whether they’re racing a yacht, piloting a ship, or managing emissions across a fleet.”
It’s a quietly ambitious mission, from a small company with global reach. As the maritime world goes digital, Tidetech is ready to lead — with science in its sails.