The Helios Omega 7.2 did not merely win the 2025 Gussies Award. It demonstrated that silence, solar panels and a digital soul are the new hallmarks of maritime sophistication – and it is poised to electrify the UAE’s coastline.
The most revelatory sound on the water is neither the shriek of a gull nor the ceremonial clink of a superyacht champagne flute. It is the sound of absolute silence. For more than a century, we have been conditioned to believe that a grand maritime arrival required a percussive, diesel-stained fanfare, as though piloting a boat were an audition for a heavy-metal drum solo. The Helios Omega 7.2, recently named the world’s best production electric boat under eight metres at the 2025 Gussies Electric Boat Awards, treats that notion with the polite disdain it deserves. It glides in with the unflappable quiet of a courier delivering a secret, leaving behind neither an oil slick nor a cloud of fumes, but an impression of such effortless sophistication that even the venerable Rivas anchored nearby suddenly seem a little… noisy.
This is no exaggeration. The Bulgarian-built vessel was crowned winner in the “Production Electric Boats: Up to 8m / 26ft” category at the 2025 Gussies Electric Boat Awards, the industry’s most respected accolade, organised by Plugboats and decided by a 35-member expert jury alongside more than 5,000 public votes. In a global field of 120 models from 25 countries, the Omega 7.2 did not simply compete; it calmly, quietly and digitally prevailed.
To call Helios Marine a boatbuilder is rather like calling a grand maison of horology a watch assembler – technically accurate, yet entirely missing the point. Founded in 2021 in Burgas, a city on Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast better known for its Roman heritage than for research and development laboratories, the company operates according to a philosophy of near-obsessive vertical integration. It designs its own hulls, engineers proprietary lithium iron phosphate battery packs, marinised in-house, and develops its own software. This is not a company that assembles a jigsaw of third-party components; it manufactures the cardboard, prints the image and writes the puzzle-solving algorithm. The result, as co-founder Dragomir Enchev told Forbes Bulgaria, is a “complete platform” rather than a collection of disparate parts – a philosophy that gives the company a distinctly cheeky advantage in both cost and performance.
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The vessel itself is a study in balanced proportions and intelligent luxury. Measuring 7.2 metres in length, the Omega 7.2 is an open day cruiser that understands its purpose is pleasure rather than ostentation. Available with either a 25 kW motor or a more spirited 50 kW version, it dispenses entirely with the vulgarity of noise and fumes, reaching a top speed of 20 knots – more than sufficient to make the sea breeze feel like an accomplice rather than an adversary. Power is supplied by an adjustable battery system ranging from 18 kWh to 54 kWh, complemented by a 1.55 kWp solar roof that, with the discreet diligence of an exemplary butler, continually replenishes the reserves. The range is ample for a day trip from Dubai Marina to the tranquil waters around The World Islands, or for a languid exploration of Abu Dhabi Mangrove National Park, without requiring a connection to a marina’s electrical supply.
Yet the true luxury lies not in the absence of a fuel bill, welcome though that may be. It resides in the presence of Helios Marine Link, the boat’s proprietary digital nervous system. Through this module, every onboard function – from battery telemetry to navigation – can be monitored and controlled via a smartphone. For a generation accustomed to the expectation that everything from an espresso machine to a villa’s climate control should respond instantly to a tap on a screen, this represents a seamless extension of terrestrial living to the marine environment. It transforms the vessel from a mere means of transport into a connected device: a member of one’s personal Internet of Things that happens to float. This kind of integrated technology makes the X Shore Eelex 8000 appear almost like a first draft and positions Helios not as a follower but as a genuine peer to Candela, albeit without the theatrical flourish of hydrofoils.
The story of Helios Marine is also a timely reminder that innovation is not confined to traditional centres of technological power. While Silicon Valley engineers were devising applications to deliver artisanal dog food, two brothers in Bulgaria were building a marine battery production line and a 1,100-square-metre manufacturing facility substantial enough to attract the mayor of Burgas to inaugurate it personally. The company’s appearance at the 2025 Cannes Yachting Festival, where it was selected for the prestigious Innovation Route – one of only 40 exhibitors chosen from more than 740 participants – marked a cinematic moment of international recognition. As the Frauscher x Porsche 850 Fantom Air drew attention with its Teutonic pedigree nearby, a whisper began to circulate among the blazer-clad cognoscenti: the truly astute money was focusing on the Bulgarian outsider, a company increasingly described in investment circles as the “Tesla of the seas”.
Such a sobriquet is not bestowed lightly. Helios has achieved something genuinely remarkable: a purchase price that can undercut comparable boats powered by internal combustion engines, a feat few electric marine manufacturers have managed. The company’s planned initial public offering on the Bulgarian Stock Exchange’s BEAM market, seeking €3 million, appears less a plea for survival than an invitation to join a celebration already under way, with an order book reportedly exceeding €8 million. Its ambitions are expansive, encompassing the 14.6-metre catamaran Alpha and an intriguing venture into autonomous maritime drones using NVIDIA chips – a development that hints at a future in which one’s yacht may one day navigate itself to one’s precise coordinates.
For discerning mariners in the UAE, the arrival of the Omega 7.2 could not be more timely. The Emirates, with its increasingly ambitious sustainability agenda – from ADNOC Logistics & Services exploring advanced electric marine technologies to Tristar Group developing hybrid biofuel-electric vessels in Fujairah – is actively embracing a quieter and cleaner maritime future. In a region where the luxury market has evolved beyond mere display towards a more refined appreciation of experience, the idea of a silent, solar-assisted day cruiser is particularly compelling. This is a boat for an elegant journey to a private dinner at Bulgari Yacht Club, not a noisy dash to an overcrowded beach. It is for the entrepreneur who checks an investment portfolio on an iPhone and derives a certain satisfaction from checking a boat’s battery status on the same device. In essence, it is a luxury object that speaks in the language of intelligence rather than volume – a quality as rare and refreshing as a quiet afternoon on the Arabian Gulf.
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A gentle measure of mockery is due to an industry that long confused decibels with dynamism. The traditional boating world, with its sun-bleached deck shoes and nostalgic reverence for varnished mahogany, is being quietly and irresistibly overtaken by a generation that regards insufficient onboard processing power as a more serious flaw than insufficient horsepower. Helios Marine understands this tectonic shift instinctively. The company is not merely selling a boat; it is offering an elegant component of a seamlessly digital, environmentally conscious lifestyle – a vessel that leaves the very marine environment it is designed to help you appreciate undisturbed.
In the end, the greatest luxury is not gold-plated throttles or a wet bar carved from a single meteorite. It is the ability to hear the water once more. And that, as the 2025 Gussies jury so persuasively affirmed, is a sound worth investing in.
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