Man Spends 200 Days Building Solar-Powered Yacht That Can Travel Forever Without Fuel

The boat you see here, dubbed Helios 11, is a lightweight solar-powered European touring machine that doesn’t require any dependency on marinas, or even a single drop of fuel. By working with lightweight materials and keeping the speeds only to what is necessary, boat-building Finnish adventure YouTuber Lukas was able to make a super efficient hull design and keep the battery stack a reasonable size, again aiding with light-weighting efforts. During the design phase of this riverboat, internet comment sections told Lukas his vision wasn’t possible, so he went out and built the thing from the ground up in his shed. After a few months on the water, it’s safe to say this boat is functional, and according to Lukas, it has infinite range. 

This isn’t some overconfident do-it-your selfer. If you aren’t already following True North Yachts on YouTube, you really should be. Not only does Lukas have some pretty great adventures, but his obsession with solar-powered boating has been incredible to watch grow. The initial prototype was pretty small and didn’t have much functionality, but Helios 11 is a true live-in travel boat, which Lukas has already sailed from Finland down to the canals of France. And he’s already beginning his next project, a full on ocean-going solar-powered catamaran. 

“Perfection,” says Lukas, “isn’t how much you can add, but how much you can take away until what remains is a pure balance between function, beauty, and durability.” It seems he may have found that point with the Helios 11. 

Having built the boat himself from inexpensive materials in a makeshift shed with tarpaulins for walls, Lukas essentially built his own seafaring house for a fraction of the cost of a land-based home. With solar energy and a small electric outboard motor powering the whole shooting match, there aren’t really any operating costs, as there would be in a traditional canal boat. It’s definitely not history’s fastest oceanliner, but it doesn’t need to be. When the river isn’t frozen over, Lukas can more or less travel at a leisurely pace wherever he wants to go. What would you give for that kind of financial and mobility freedom? Is there any other way to get from Finland to France without spending a dime on fuel or charging? This seems pretty cool in my book. 

There are so few truly great channels out there in the great big slop space of YouTube, so when a great one comes across our desk, we absolutely have to shout about it from the rooftops. Lukas’ delivery is a little dry, you know, in a Scandinavian way, but when it comes to engineering projects like this, I think that’s the best way to talk about it. Think of it like solar-powered yacht building and living ASMR. It’s just so soothing.