Man who built solar-powered yacht that can run forever has now traveled for 60 nautical miles with zero fuel

The man who’s been traveling the world with a solar-powered yacht on an (almost) zero-dollar budget for fuel managed to cover 60 nautical miles with zero fuel in Ibiza, Spain.

Naturally, it was entirely powered by the sun like his previous journey from Finland.

But this journey was done in the yacht because he was completely out of options.

It all started with a small dose of misfortune, actually.

Why the solar-powered yacht had to travel 60 nautical miles with no fuel

Lukas Sjoman, the guy behind the TRUE NORTH YouTube channel, said the dinghy he and his partner were intending to use to travel from Ibiza to Xàbia, Spain, was stolen.

This left them with no choice but to use the solar-powered yacht.

Dubbed Helios 11, the boat was able to handle the trip quite efficiently, maintaining an average speed of 6.2 knots using nothing but solar power.

Apples to apples, yachting is probably the most expensive method of transport.

If you factor in absolutely everything – crew, upfront costs, insurance, fees, and so on – the cost per mile of a boat is probably the highest in the world.

It’s miles worse than that of a car or a motorbike, and depending on the aircraft, can even eclipse the cost of flying.

Still, building a DIY yacht that’s potentially capable of sailing under its own ‘steam’ on a zero-dollar budget with you at the helm is something you can definitely brag about.

Below: the yacht anchored near the port in Ibiza, Spain

Even so, as a side note, he still ended up replacing the dinghy.

But he replaced it with a kayak.

His latest video also showed him installing a freezer and constructing a foldable swimming ladder from leftover timber, allowing easier access from the water after taking a dip.

Is solar power the future?

We should probably start with a preface that’s not always understood or accepted: there’s no such thing as a free meal.

Solar power isn’t free because the panels you need to actually harness solar power need specialized materials and semiconductor components that are neither cheap nor easy to source.

Even so, generating your own solar power remains highly cost-effective over time.

While the upfront infrastructure requires maintenance, the fuel source itself is free and unlimited.

Automakers like Aptera Motors have experimented with solar-assisted cars designed to generate power directly from the sun.

Meanwhile, large-scale maritime projects such as PlanetSolar have already demonstrated that solar vessels can travel vast distances across oceans.

Energy prices are going up across the board, which means that solar is the lesser of two evils.

With that in mind, solar technology is still definitely on its way up, not down.