Though I am well familiar with the Homeric reference to the Aegean Sea as being wine-dark, I always thought that guy was full of it. That is until I took my first trip to Greece recently to visit the Omikron shipyard and sea trial the builder’s OT-60. It was on board that boat—standing at the transom as we zipped across a persistent chop whipped up by the seasonal Meltemi winds—that I peered off the transom and down into the sea. It’s not quite cabernet. But there is an undeniable magenta overtone to the water that, I suppose if you had drunk enough wine, begins to resemble it. That Homer was the real deal.
So is Omikron. In all my days in the marine industry, I can’t recall coming across a builder as versatile as this one. It’s easy to forget about the Greeks. As far as Southern Europe goes, they aren’t the Italians with their loads of style and even more loads of builders. And they aren’t the Turks with their quickly improving quality and a penchant for bargaining. What you get with the Greeks is a nation with the maritime life deeply embedded in its DNA. The country is a peninsula with thousands of islands—to a huge portion of Greeks, water is life. Before it became a hotbed for European basketball talent, sailing was perhaps the closest thing to a national sport. And then of course there is the Greek shipping industry, which ranks third overall worldwide behind China and Japan for total commercial ships in a nation’s fleet. It leads the world for oil tankers and it’s not even close—not bad for a country with 10 million people.
The Greeks’ deep understanding of how boats work was on full display at the Omikron yard near Athens. An unending row of sailing yachts and motoryachts on the hard stood like giant sentries as I entered the premises. Omikron was formerly known as Olympic Marine, and has a strong history of refitting large vessels, dating back to 1969. As I toured the factory walking past carpentry stations, welding stations, and pieces of superstructure being resin infused, I was struck by the cleanliness and order of the place. Workers labored diligently and seemingly happily at every turn, until we were spit out into a massive hangar where the nearly completed Omikrons awaited delivery, alongside a storage area for RIBs and smaller vessels that the yard offers to clients.
Walking out of the shady hangar into the bright, blue day I was met with the fruits of all the labor I had just witnessed. Bobbing in the harbor was the Omikron OT-60. To say she is striking is an understatement. Lorenzo Argento penned this beauty and she does call to mind a mastless sailboat. The builder describes her as a “modern trawler,” and while that moniker is meant to describe her performance, it extends to her aesthetics as well. The 60 was gleaming white and boxy in a good way, with a tall superstructure and vertical windshield. A bowsprit juts out, pointing the way forward while also lending a bit of old-school nautical heritage to the model’s look. An unbroken shearline is complemented by three perfectly rectangular hullside windows. The overall vibe is of a clean, sturdy, and seaworthy vessel that straddles the lines between the future and the past.
Stepping aboard into the cockpit, the first thing I noticed were the mirrored seating areas to port and starboard with convertible teak tables. Each can either act as a dining settee or as a sunpad. An integrated barbecue station covered by a piece of teak resides in the aft starboard corner and is an excellent place to grill up some octopus when cruising the Greek isles. Opposite that, a hidden, pop-up docking station to port aids with backing in stern-to in Mediterranean ports (I suspect it will be equally useful stateside).
Wide decks to both sides of the boat will also be appreciated by crew. Railings are replaced by wires to help keep the boat light and fuel efficient. This may be a turnoff for some, but I didn’t find it a hindrance during my time aboard as the side decks really are quite spacious. They lead to a large bowdeck with a sunpad big enough for at least three. A ladder leads to the top of the superstructure where another sunpad is an option. Interestingly, that ladder can be removed and used to aid people in getting in and out of the water at the swim platform. It’s a clever little trick that shows the creative ways in which Omikron has discovered how to keep the boat’s weight down.
Entering the yacht’s interior, the first thing that strikes you is the sheer spaciousness. It doesn’t quite seem possible for a boat with a 60-foot LOA. The effect is achieved by an extra-high superstructure that offers about 7 feet of headroom, along with large windows surrounding the entire space. Flip-up windows between the cockpit and salon help meld the two areas together and let in cool breezes. The amount of natural light is astounding here. The first time I boarded the Omikron I thought it felt a little like a greenhouse. A settee to port is the perfect place for a nap and also has nice lines of sight through the windows despite being relatively low.
The OT-60 makes full use of her height with an atrium that yawns skyward over the middle portion of the accommodations deck. My test boat had a three-stateroom layout, but Omikron is capable of customizing the configuration down here nearly any way one chooses.
At the helm, the lines of sight are impeccable thanks to those large and omnipresent windows. Twin pilot seats sit before twin Garmin screens and a small wheel that steers smoothly. The Omikron has twin 250-horsepower Yanmar diesels, which is where I will level my main critique. I’d like to see an option with a bit more oomph. With the hammer down the OT-60 does 19 knots at light displacement (that a 60 footer can be pushed to that speed with 500 total horsepower also speaks to the hull’s efficiency). But I’d love to see 22 knots or so at the top end, just in case you need to get out ahead of a storm.
The Yanmars do sip fuel, though. The boat is all carbon fiber above the deck, which greatly aids with fuel efficiency (as well as seaworthiness because it keeps the COG low). I cruised the boat at 11.6 knots where it only burned .92 gph for a 350-nautical-mile range. Throttled back to 8 knots, the range is an even 1,000 nautical miles.
We put that range to good use. The first leg of our trip was to a marina in another part of Athens to see Dream, a 357-foot former cruise ship that Omikron overhauled into a megayacht for the yard’s owner. The remarkable level of fit and finish the yard put into this yacht was so good it won a World Superyacht Award when it debuted in 2019. Touring Dream, the scope of the Omikron operation manifests itself with abundant clarity. The difference between building a 60-foot, semi-production trawler and refitting one of the largest yachts in the world is truly vast, and yet Omikron does each with equal aplomb. It’s one of the more impressive feats I’ve seen from a boatyard in recent memory.
The next portion of my trip was to hop back on the OT-60 and do some exploring. We first cruised over to a deserted beach on an island simply called Long Island—it has a Greek name, but the Greeks don’t bother with it when speaking to foreigners because it’s difficult to pronounce. We pulled up to an empty cove where the water lost its merlot hue and changed to the more familiar aquamarine of the subtropical Med. I hopped in for a quick scoot around on a Seabob that had been stowed on board.
After a romantic walk on the beach by myself, I zipped back to the boat to head off to lunch on a different island. There we shimmied stern-first into a narrow spot between a RIB and a big Bertram sportfisherman of all things, and enjoyed plate after plate of fresh seafood accompanied by the crisp white wine that is popular in the region.
After lunch we loaded back on board for the two-hour cruise home. With a full stomach and lightly sunburned skin, it was a moment I had been looking forward to. I am a boat-nap connoisseur, and earlier in the day I had spied that settee in the salon with something akin to glee. I had also taken note of the sound attenuation built into the boat, which made it exceptionally quiet. I knew I was in for an epic snooze as I stretched out on the settee and pulled my hat over my eyes, and like Odysseus, settled in for the long journey home.
Omikron OT-60 Specifications:
LOA: 60’5”
Beam: 20’0”
Draft: 2’10”
Displ.: 19,000 lb.
Fuel: 317 gal.
Water: 158 gal.
Power: 2/250-hp Yanmar
Cruise Speed: 11.6 knots
Top Speed: 19 knots
Price: $2.9 million
This article originally appeared in the August/September 2025 issue of Power & Motoryacht magazine.
