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How would your boss react if he had to sign off for an expensive stuffed fish you’d bought on a whim on your holiday?

Most of us would probably answer “not very thrilled”. But Frank Stephenson’s boss is not your average boss; his workplace is not your average workplace; and the fish? Well, that’s not your normal fish either.

Stephenson is design director of McLaren Automotive, the carmakers behind a range of highly prized, high-priced cars. While on holiday in the Caribbean, he noticed a sailfish on a wall in the resort where he was staying. A man working there told Stephenson that he was proud to have caught the fish because it was so fast. Stephenson was intrigued – he began doing some research on the species to find out why it was so quick.

The McLaren P1 hybrid supercar uses design tricks inspired by the sailfish’s skin (McLaren)

On the way back to London, Stephenson stopped off in Miami and went down to a local fishing village, where, in a stroke of luck, a local fisherman had just caught a sailfish. He bought it, sent it downtown to get it stuffed and eventually got it delivered to the scanning department of the McLaren Automotive aerodynamics laboratory in Surrey – where the carmakers set to work trying to learn the secrets of the super-speed fish’s abilities. It’s just one of a number of recent initiatives by automotive companies to try and learn from techniques that have been used in nature.

The sailfish is a kind of turbo swordfish; one that has been clocked swimming 100m in around half the time it takes Usain Bolt to run it. They are capable of these bursts of breath-taking speed in order to chase down the small, fast-swimming fish they eat. The analysis revealed that the scales on the sailfish’s skin generate little vortices that result in the fish being enveloped in a bubble of air instead of denser water. This reduced drag allows the fish to move even faster.