This February, I was on a powerboat off Anse Marcel on the French side of the Caribbean island of Saint-Martin when a fleet of fast performance-cruising multihulls set sail into the windy Anguilla Channel for the rally portion of the annual Caribbean Multihull Challenge. A pair of Balance 442 cats named Sage and Umoya, with reefed mains and drawing spinnakers, were blasting their way into the channel’s whitecapped waters, roiled by the 20-plus-knot easterly trade winds. 

Though they were practically the smallest cats in the fray, the 442s were more than holding their own against the bigger craft, which included a quartet of Balance 482s (including company president and founder Phil Berman’s In Balance). Five months earlier, during our annual Boat of the Year contest, I’d sailed the very same Umoya in somewhat lighter air. Now I knew what the 442s looked like under sail in sportier conditions while hauling the mail: buoyant, sprightly and packed with horsepower. The yacht’s angular aesthetics are crisp, clean and, to my eye, quite fetching. There’s a deck-stepped mast and a working sail plan consisting of a big, square-topped fully battened mainsail and self-tacking jib; relatively narrow hulls with high freeboard and curved, wave-piercing bows that maximize waterline length; an integral sprit for the reaching and running sails; and a substantial coachroof topped with solar panels
and accented by generous, tempered-glass windows. 

Balance Catamarans are built in South Africa, where almost 500 employees operate out of two separate facilities, building about 25 boats a year spanning several models. They all share, as Berman told me, a common purpose and the same DNA: They’re performance-oriented, liveaboard cruising boats that are bluewater capable and sail well on all points of sail. The carbon-infused daggerboards, a feature shared with every model in the brand, are largely responsible for their notable windward ability. 

The build, systems and layout are, at once, both complex and straightforward. The hand-laid hull and deck laminates are vacuum-bagged and employ a vinylester outer skin with a polyester inner skin sandwiching a closed-cell foam core with carbon reinforcements in high-load areas (and in the structural crossbeams). To keep the ­vessel as light as possible without compromising strength, the bulkheads and furniture are foam-cored. 

While the contemporary construction techniques and materials are decidedly high-tech, the power and charging systems aren’t especially complicated; Berman said that another overall goal was to keep the boats as simple as possible to sail and operate. For example, Ed Sherman, our BOTY judge who concentrates on systems, was somewhat surprised that the builder did not opt for the digital-­switching configurations so prevalent now across the industry. Still, he liked what he saw, perhaps even more so.  

“This boat is yet another variation of the ‘no-dedicated-­onboard-generator direction’ we are moving in. It uses integral engine-driven alternators—in this case, a pair of them—that create 48-volt power and run this power through Victron converters to run 24- or 12-volt appliances (or the 48-volt equipment just becoming available in the marine marketplace). Energy is stored in lithium-ion battery banks and can be run through DC/AC inverters to run 120- or 220-volt AC appliances. I see the future of onboard electrical systems on this boat.” 

The accommodations plans are also well-thought-out. At 44 feet length overall, and with the daggerboards to account for, this boat has less interior volume than you’d find on other production cats in this size range. But the Balance team maximized the space available, particularly with the big sliding-glass doors that, when open, incorporate the interior lounge, galley and salon with the cockpit. There’s a choice of four staterooms or, as we had on our test boat, three. In the latter setup, a pair of double-berth ­staterooms are to port (one with an athwartship berth forward and a fore-and-aft bunk aft) while a dedicated owner’s stateroom spans the hull to starboard. In either configuration, stowage is abundant. 

The deck also has nifty things of note: the dual mainsheet system that allows the boom angle to be fine-tuned, negating the need for a traveler; the taut, split trampolines forward that provide an excellent bridle system for the ground tackle centered between them; the grab rails on the coachroof top, serving as handholds and rain catchers; the dedicated winch forward for the spinnaker halyard or code zero; and the huge sail locker that can be accessed from the deck. The davit system also works well. Ullman sails are standard. For electronics, owners can choose Garmin or Raymarine kit.

It was under sail, however, that I truly began to appreciate the 442’s proportions, and came to realize what an ideal-size boat this is for a cruising couple. It’s large enough to address most any cruisers’ plans and itinerary, but not so big that you need to bring additional crew on board to go cruising. 

Our test sail was conducted in considerably more mellow conditions than those off Anse Marcel, but in a building southerly that topped out around 15 knots, there was more than enough breeze to strut the 442’s stuff. The VersaHelm that’s offered on every Balance lives up to its name: The convertible wheel can be locked down at cockpit level in inclement conditions, out of the weather, though thanks to those wide windows, there’s good visibility. Or it can be raised up to the elevated helm station to starboard, where a pair of winches and three sets of rope clutches serve the color-coded ­running rigging that’s all right at hand. The engine controls and instrumentation are mounted here as well, making this an easy boat to sail solo. 

We tacked upwind to gain sea room, gliding along at a pretty effortless 8-plus knots, then swapped the jib for the code zero, turned and burned on a broad reach, and easily topped 11 knots. That was clearly the cat’s sweet spot. It was evident that you could easily match that speed for miles and miles and, on passage, knock out consistent 200-plus-mile days. 

To sum up, what you get with the Balance 442 is comfort at anchor and performance underway. Sounds to me like it all balances out.

Balance 442 Specifications

Herb McCormick is former editor-in-chief of Cruising World and the yachting correspondent for The New York Times. The author of five nautical books, he’s owned several sailboats, including his current Pearson 365 and Pearson Ensign.

The post Sailboat Review: Performance Catamaran Balance 442 appeared first on Cruising World.

Overall Winner and Best Full-Size Cruiser: Hylas H57

Peggy Huang and David Crafa accepted the award for Hylas Yachts for the Overall Winner of the 2022 Cruising World Boat of the Year. The Hylas H57 won the Best Full-Size Cruiser category, placing it in the running against all category winners for the major prize: the overall Boat of the Year. The Hylas H57 distinguished itself above and beyond the others and was named Best Overall.

Boat of the Year judge Tim Murphy had this to say about the Hylas H57: “This Bill Dixon design is a departure from previous Germán Frers-designed Hylas yachts. It signals a new trend: new look, new layout, new thinking. This is a 57-foot twin-rudder boat that displaces 57,000 pounds. They’re doing something that we’ve seen in a lot of new boats lately, a trend where there’s a separation between the social cockpit and the working cockpit, and well aft, a walkway down between the twin helms to the transom. It’s a good solution. It works.

“When you come alongside, it actually looks and feels a little like a catamaran.

It’s got a hard dodger built in, a very successful one, which I think is quite useful when you’re in the cockpit. Everyone wants to have shade and shelter from rain and the elements, and this is an excellent answer for that. By and large, this is just a very nice, functional cruising boat. The berths are big and luxurious, but they’re also set up for lee cloths. This is a boat meant to go places. And it’s lovely to be aboard. It’s just a very strong boat in many, many ways.”

Judge Ed Sherman noted: “The boat we sailed seemed like a test bed for systems the company is considering for future models. The owners have broad experience in offshore sailing and considered very carefully what they wanted in a large boat that can be easily sailed by a cruising couple. From the custom enclosure for the helm and cockpit area to the powered winches and video-camera repeaters at the helm station to confirm sail trim, I think they hit a home run. 

“Like other boats we tested in this size range, the builder employed a 24-volt DC electrical system, which dramatically reduces overall weight on a boat as systems-rich as this was. Additionally, the electrical-system design helped ensure that onboard systems would function regardless of global location: 120-volt/60 Hz or 230-volt/50 Hz, it didn’t matter; accommodation was made to cover all bases.

“On top of all that, it sailed well. I thought they did a great job in designing the sailhandling controls. It’s all right there near the helm, and it worked well. I liked that. It got my vote.”

Judge Gerry Douglas noted: “The performance of the boat was terrific. It tacked through about 50 degrees, which was outstanding for a boat that big. It was always sailing at about 60 percent of the windspeed, which for a big, heavy boat like that was impressive. Regarding the boat’s ergonomics, every place to sit was comfortable. You had good seatback support and nothing awkward to step over. All the companionway steps were of equal size and worked well. It was just a really easy boat to get around. All the seat dimensions in the interior were correct. We’ve seen so many boats where that’s not the case. It was really comfortable to sit in. And you can imagine sitting there reading a book for hours and not feeling like you’re sitting on a park bench. 

“I voted for the Hylas because I think it was probably the most different from any other previous boat that the company has produced. It’s the first one that appealed to me personally. There’s a lot of content there and the price point—in retrospect, in view of all the prices of the boats in this year’s contest—is pretty reasonable. I never thought I’d say that a boat worth 2 million bucks was reasonable, but it is.”

2022 Boat of the Year: The Contest and Winner

Beneteau First 27: Best Pocket Cruiser/Daysailer

The Beneteau team, including Tomo Novak, Head of Sales, Seascape; Eric LeVine, Sales Manager, Beneteau; Andraz Mihelin, Founder, Seascape; Aurore Bordage, Marketing Manager, Beneteau, accepted their award for the Best Pocket Cruiser/Daysailer for the winning Beneteau First 27. The First 27, a sporty racer/cruiser, boasts all the amenities necessary for weekend and coastal voyaging: a serviceable head, galley and berths, and a Yanmar diesel. In other words, a couple could easily liveaboard, rather than camp, for short periods of time, but they could also expect to be serious podium contenders should those outings involve a regatta. In the end, when deciding the winner of the Best Pocket Cruiser, it was the little things that swayed the judges. “The fit-and-finish for the price point is at a different level,” judge Gerry Douglas said. “The equipment level was higher.”

2022 Boat of the Year: Best Pocket Cruiser/Daysailer

Leopard Catamarans Leopard 42: Best Cruising Catamaran (Under 50 Feet)

The Leopard Catamaran team, including Michael Robertson, Designer, Robertson and Caine; Theo Loock, CEO, Robertson and Caine; Franck Bauguil, VP Yacht Ownership and Product Development; Alex Simonis, Naval Architect, Simonis-Voogd Design; Peter Robertson, VP Sales, Robertson and Caine; and Josie Tucci, VP Charter Sales and Marketing; accepted their award for the Best Cruising Catamaran (Under 50 Feet) for the Leopard 42. 

From the proven partnership and collaboration between South African builder Robertson and Caine and the Moorings, the judges felt the Leopard 42 is an ideal platform for private ownership and/or bareboat chartering. The judges found much to like about this latest Leopard, including the offset steering station to starboard and the lounge space forward accessed via a front door in the saloon. But the Leopard sealed its victory with an awesome sea trial in which it overhauled and passed a popular new monohull. What put the boat over the top wasn’t just the sailing performance, which was obviously terrific, but also the tools with which to sail the boat, and its overall deck layout, all of which optimized the experience. Judge Tim Murphy said, “With the Leopard, you have visual eye contact from the raised helm station to starboard down into the cockpit, you’ve got a visual line of sight into the saloon, and you’ve got a pretty good visibility over the top of the cabin top everywhere. You had access to your main sheet right there where you needed it. This was one of the boats that had no traveler, but instead had a windward and leeward block on the mainsheet. I think that’s a fine system, I like the control you have. Jibing works fine and is easily controlled.”

2022 Boat of the Year: Best Cruising Catamaran (Under 50’)

Balance 482: Best Performance Catamaran

Mark Delany, Balance Managing Director; and Phil Berman, Balance Catamaran President received the award for the Best Performance Catamaran, for Balance Catamaran’s Balance 482. Quick, fast and fun, the South African-built Balance 482 is a cat that will get up and go, but offers plenty of comfort once the hook is down.

“The sailing performance was excellent,” said judge Gerry Douglas. “The boat felt really good. The steering was terrific. The structure of the boat throughout was exemplary. Storage is really good. Visibility was good. Ventilation was great. There was even a rain collection system on the cabin top, which is the only one of the boats we looked at had that. It was very well concealed because the gutters formed a handhold going forward. The solar panel installation was also well done. The panels were encapsulated into a fiberglass tray that elevated the deck so the panels wouldn’t overheat. Very clever.”

The driving force behind Balance cats is Phil Berman, a world champ at racing beach cats who brought that passion to developing and marketing fully found cruisers. Judge Murphy knows him well: “Phil comes from a very strong view of wanting to see boats that have solid sailing performance. He’s also a strong proponent of daggerboard boats, which tends to be quick shorthand for the dividing line between cats that are more about payload versus cats that are about performance, but not so much where you’re going to fly a hull or break a rudder. There’s a balance within a boat that really performs that you can still live aboard.”

2022 Boat of the Year: Best Performance Catamaran

Xquisite X5 Plus: Best Cruising Catamaran (Over 50 Feet)

The Xquisite crew of Tamas Hamor, CEO; Stephen Joyce, Global Service Manager; and Sara Hajdu, Xquisite Charter, were on hand to accept the award for the Best Cruising Catamaran (Over 50 Feet) for the Xquisite X5 Plus. A unique cruising cat with cool features galore and an impressive commitment to customer service, the Xquisite X5 Plus won the judges over. This is a dedicated cruising cat, through and through. And there’s much to like about this 53-foot South African-built product. For judge Tim Murphy, the important details weren’t necessarily the ones you could easily see, but rather the ones you couldn’t. “What I was most struck by on our tour of the boat was actually the service side of the whole equation,” he said. “There are 40,000 man-hours invested in this boat. And you can see it—those are solid hours of labor. One thing that was pointed out were two different marks on the heads of bolts showing they were torqued. And part of the Xquisite program is they spend two weeks with each owner, training them up with systems. All told, this is really one strong product.” 

Judge Ed Sherman agreed: “The business model here is exemplary. What they’re really doing is emulating the high-end automotive market. I think they looked at the automotive sector for high-end cars like BMW and Mercedes and said, ‘OK, this sounds good, it looks good, and we’re going to do it, too.’ And they are. So, I think that that aspect of his business plan where they’re training the owners and then doing things like loading the boat up with spare parts as part of the original purchase, I mean, hats off to them. It’s a great way to go. How can you argue against it?”

“I couldn’t find anything that was done halfway,” said Gerry Douglas. “It was done better than you’d expect it to be, just because they wanted the boat to be perfect.  And the quality of construction is excellent. It’s an infused hull but with a hand-laminated deck because there’s so many very tight corners and cavities. They didn’t think they could infuse that without adding a whole lot of weight. And I get that. So, they would hand laminate it, which makes sense when you have some of the very sharp corners that exist on that boat. It was all just perfectly done.”

2022 Boat of the Year: Best Cruising Catamaran (Over 50’)

Kinetic KC54: All-around excellence took the judges breath away

Kinetic CEO Bob Hayward and Collin Marshall, Boat & Sailing Systems Engineer,

were on hand to accept the award for the Kinetic KC54. The Kinetic KC54 received a Special Recognition award. The Kinetic KC54 is a fresh entry in the cat universe and a new player in the class of what might be called Super Cats, the progenitors of which are notable brands like Gunboat and HH Catamarans. These light, fast craft put a high premium in flat-out performance, but also have the cool, comfortable, contemporary features and amenities of a stylish, forward-thinking cruising boat. They are, in the realm of performance cruisers, at the very cutting edge. Judge Tim Murphy got right to the point: “This is a fairly new company that was started within the past couple of years. My breath was absolutely taken away by this boat; it was spectacular. I think it was the best-built boat in the entire fleet. It’s an all-carbon boat, with a foam core, epoxy resin, all infused–fantastic. The whole boat felt integrated. You didn’t feel like there was a conflict between the forces in terms of accommodation versus performance.” With a price tag approaching $3 million, it perhaps should not be astonishing. That was a major factor in evaluating the boat, and while it did not win its class, the experts panel did present it with a Judges’ Special Recognition prize to honor the boat’s overall excellence.

“It was my personal favorite in this year’s contest,” said judge Ed Sherman. The materials that were used are absolutely the highest quality available in our industry at this point, and it’s a very high-tech boat in terms of systems.” Judge Gerry Douglas was also duly impressed: “This was the Tesla of sailboats. I think that that was their model. In terms of design and execution and technology, it hit all three of those marks. This boat is built without compromise, and what it cost was not an issue, they just wanted to do the best they could in every aspect of the boat. The construction was impeccable, the fit and finish was amazing. There are some very clever design things in the boat, but it all really worked seamlessly.”  

2022 Boat of the Year: Special Judges’ Awards

The 2022 BOTY Contest

The 27 entries—the largest BOTY entry list in many years—were ultimately broken down into eight categories, with the 16 monohulls distributed over five divisions ranging from 24 feet to 67 feet in size, and with prices ranging from $50,000 to $4 million. Meanwhile, the 11 nominated catamarans were grouped in three classes: two based on size and a third focused on performance. And talk about an international gathering! Builders from no fewer than nine nations were represented: the US, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Slovenia, South Africa, Sweden and Taiwan. 

Boats tests were divided into two parts: onboard inspections that took place on the docks at the US Sailboat Show in Annapolis, MD., in October; and at-sea sail trials conducted in the days immediately following the boat show.

Judges chose winners in eight separate size- and/or purpose-related categories. Just for good measure—because they were suitably impressed by their excellence—they also presented a pair of separate awards to boats that deserved special recognition. 

The post Cruising World 2022 Boat of the Year Winners Celebrate Their Awards at the Miami International Boat Show appeared first on Cruising World.

OK, confession time. When the roster of nominees for the 2022 Boat of the Year awards was released, the contest’s team and judging panel couldn’t help themselves, and quietly put three check marks, little symbols of anticipation, alongside a trio of boats: the untamed cats that would vie for the title of best performer in their class. After all, both Balance and Seawind had entered the winner’s circle in previous BOTY competitions, and it was clear they’d have a serious contender for the throne in yet another player from cat-crazy South Africa, the Kinetic KC54. How’d it go? Let’s just say, nobody was disappointed. The conditions on Chesapeake Bay were ideal for putting the three nominees through their paces, and the trio of scalded cats all acquitted themselves superbly. 

For 2022, if anything, the trend for flybridge catamarans is on a major upswing. New cats for 2022 from both Lagoon and Fountaine Pajot continued down that design path, putting an emphasis on living accommodations, not performance. But not aboard the latest Seawind 1600, a brand originally built in Australia that is now produced in Vietnam. And that suits judge Tim Murphy just fine. “This boat was very dialed in,” he said, “and one place Seawind has always been innovative is with their helms. This one was really great; it was -outboard and aft with great visibility, sort of half-protected where you could step in and out. There was also good access to the boom and mainsail, which you don’t always see on cats. The deck layout was excellent, particularly the forward trampolines. Some cats have lacings with large openings where you can twist an ankle, but these were nice and tight.”

“Compared to other Seawinds that I’ve seen, I was just blown away with it in terms of what it could do and how it performed,” said Ed Sherman.  “It’s a fairly conservative boat in terms of technology compared to some of the other boats in the same category, which depending on a potential buyer’s state of mind, could be either a good thing or a bad one. I loved the centralized winch aft which is where all the sail-handling takes place. It’s pretty brilliant for a short-handed crew, and it’s all in a very safe and easy-to-access location that a cruising couple can deal with without scaring the heck out of themselves.”

The Kinetic KC54 is a fresh entry in the cat universe, and we’ll let Tim Murphy get right to the point: “This is a fairly new company that was started within the past couple of years. My breath was absolutely taken away by this boat; it was spectacular. I think it was the best-built boat in the entire fleet. It’s an all-carbon boat, with a foam core, epoxy resin, all infused–fantastic. The whole boat felt integrated. You didn’t feel like there was a conflict between the forces in terms of accommodation versus performance.” With a price tag approaching $3 million, it perhaps should not be astonishing. That was a major factor in evaluating the boat, and while it did not win its class, the experts panel did present it with a Judges’ Special Recognition prize to honor the boat’s overall excellence.

“It was my personal favorite in this year’s contest,” said Sherman. The materials that were used are absolutely the highest quality available in our industry at this point, and it’s a very high-tech boat in terms of systems.” Gerry Douglas was also duly impressed: “This was the Tesla of sailboats. I think that that was their model. In terms of design and execution and technology, it hit all three of those marks. This boat is built without compromise, and what it cost was not an issue, they just wanted to do the best they could in every aspect of the boat. The construction was impeccable, the fit and finish was amazing. There are some very clever design things in the boat, but it all really worked seamlessly.”  

With that level of competition, the Balance 482 had a tall order to overcome to win its class. And it did. “The sailing performance was excellent,” said Douglas. “The boat felt really good. The steering was terrific. The structure of the boat throughout was exemplary. Storage is really good. Visibility was good. Ventilation was great. There was even a rain collection system on the cabin top, which is the only one of the boats we looked at had that. It was very well concealed because the gutters formed a handhold going forward. The solar panel installation was also well done. The panels were encapsulated into a fiberglass tray that elevated the deck so the panels wouldn’t overheat. Very clever.”

The driving force behind Balance cats is Phil Berman, a world champ at racing beach cats who brought that passion to developing and marketing fully found cruisers. Judge Murphy knows him well: “Phil comes from a very strong view of wanting to see boats that have solid sailing performance. He’s also a strong proponent of daggerboard boats, which tends to be quick shorthand for the dividing line between cats that are more about payload versus cats that are about performance, but not so much where you’re going to fly a hull or break a rudder. There’s a balance within a boat that really performs that you can still live aboard.” A winning balance, it turns out, with the Balance 482 securing its position as the Best Performance Cruiser for 2022.

The post 2022 Boat of the Year: Best Performance Catamaran appeared first on Cruising World.

It was a match made in multihull heaven. On the one hand, you had American Phil Berman, a world-class competitive Hobie sailor in his youth, who parlayed his knowledge, talent and passion into a decades-long career conceptualizing, sailing and selling cruising catamarans. On the other hand, you had designer Anton du Toit and the Paarman brothers, a trio of South African surfing legends who began their careers shaping and building surfboards and later applied that experience — along with their deep understanding of the wild waves, winds and currents that surge along the coast of their homeland — to the lamination, construction and marketing of long-range cruising cats.

The ensuing collaboration between Berman, du Toit, the Paarman bros and their company, Nexus Yachts, led to a balancing act in creating a light, fast cruising boat — one that two people could truly sail well — that nonetheless could carry a cruiser’s payload and offer complete, comfortable accommodations. The end result was the Balance 526, Cruising World’s Import Boat of the Year and Best Full-Size Multihull Over 50 Feet for 2017.

“Phil has entered other boats in the contest, including a Dolphin cat built in Brazil and an earlier Balance model built in China,” said Tim Murphy. “I think he’s nailed it with this one. In fact, I think the Balance 526 represents an important moment in the history of multihull design and evolution. We’ve been watching catamaran development for 20 years now. In the beginning, there were big, fat boats that at first weren’t designed for the loads that people put on them. But there was something missing in the marketplace that Phil recognized: a high-­performance voyaging cat that an experienced couple could take anywhere. Then Gunboat came in with their 62-footer, a real thoroughbred boat, but it was more than most couples could handle; you needed a professional crew. Finally, we have that performance cruiser that a couple can actually sail well.

“The lamination work is very nice,” he continued. “This is a vacuum-bagged epoxy boat. A lot of the structure has carbon in it. It’s an E-glass boat for the most part, but where there are any high-load areas, they’re using carbon. So it’s a good, light structure.”

“The Balance we sailed had a high-end owner who decided to go full-on with a lithium-ion power plant, so we’re playing in the state-of-the-art arena here,” said Ed Sherman. “On the shore-power side, he was also very mindful of migrating around the world, so he set that up in such a way that he has a lot of options that are essentially switchable with the change of an adaptor. But there are also 1,200 watts’ worth of solar panels. To save weight, they went to a 24-volt DC system instead of 12 volts; this enables them to cut their wire gauge and such in half, which on a boat like this can add up to a lot of weight in just copper. It speaks to the whole concept of the boat.”

“The delivery crew that had brought the boat from South Africa were so enthusiastic about how the boat sailed and how functional it was,” said Carol Hasse. “They were sailors, like us, and they were all in sync with the boat in neat ways that made us all feel like ‘OK, this thing is totally happening. It’s well designed and seaworthy.’” Indeed it was. And it was also a big winner.

Read more about the Balance 526 here.

Find out the Winner of the 2017 Domestic Boat of the Year here.

The post Import Boat of the Year 2017 appeared first on Cruising World.

In the world of cruising catamarans, a debate has been raging for more than 20 years: Payload or performance? The palaver started in the mid-1990s, when cats began rolling out in increasing numbers for larger populations of sailors, including charterers. The boats were marketed on the basis of two mutually exclusive promises: their displacement-busting speed potential or their capacity to carry all the comforts of a well-appointed apartment. Sailors snarked about roomarans, the boats you might want to take anchoring but never sailing. At the other end of the cat spectrum were thoroughbreds marketed to couples but in fact sailed by pro crews.

The Balance 526 was forged in the smithy of this debate.

“We’re not creating a charter cat, and we’re not creating a racing cat,” says Phil Berman, owner of Balance Catamarans. “We’re creating a high-performance cruising cat for a couple to sail on.”

If the 526 isn’t the first model Berman created with those aims in mind, it is certainly the most successful.

What’s the secret in this boat? It starts with Berman’s build partners at Nexus Yachts (see “The Artisan Cat Builders of South Africa,” p. 82). Through a rare mix of world-class talent in building composite structures and labor rates that allow a builder to competitively market a 25,000-man-hour product, Nexus has created a beautiful vessel. The hull is a sandwich of fiber with a closed-cell foam core, bonded together using only epoxy resin — the best boatbuilding resin available. The fibers are E-glass with carbon reinforcement in the high-load areas, a good blend of cost containment and above-average strength-to-weight ratios. The cores are vacuum-bagged for thorough bonding, including in the interior bulkheads and furniture. Throughout the boat, fiber-to-resin ratios are artfully managed.

“Jonathan Paarman has a no-stainless fetish,” says Berman, referring to the chief laminator at Nexus Yachts. Handrails and posts for radar and antennas are all built from lightweight composites.

I sailed hull number one in Cape Town, South Africa, shortly after it launched. Even loaded for long fishing expeditions — including with a factory-installed ice flaker — this boat was a special pleasure to sail. The hull form features a reverse bow and scoop transom for a long waterline, but no chines or other tricks that add cabin volume at the cost of hydrodynamic flow. We sailed at 9.4 knots upwind in 11 knots of breeze; cracked off to 120 degrees apparent with a screacher up, we sailed at 12.3 knots.

The cabin designs are a result of hulls that were built for sailing. A head and massive stall shower occupy the aft end of the owner’s hull, while the master cabin lands near the hull’s centerline. A walk-around queen is placed athwartships and up on the bridgedeck. Guest accommodations are located in the port hull, with an athwartship bunk forward and an in-line berth in the aft cabin; a head and guest shower are located amidships.

The helm station features an articulating wheel pedestal. On some monohulls, we’ve seen this arrangement as an alternative to twin helms. On the 526, it allows the helmsman to steer from one of two positions at the aft end of the cabin bulkhead: either “up,” with full, direct visibility of the deck and sails, or “down,” on the cockpit sole with full weather protection and visibility through the cabin’s windows — which are made from tempered glass, not Lexan, which can craze over time.

Having joined the payload-versus-performance multihull debate for much of the past two decades myself, I stepped off the Balance 526 thinking it might just be the new scratch boat in that fight.

Tim Murphy is a CW editor-at-large and a longtime Boat of the Year judge.

The post Balance 526 appeared first on Cruising World.

Conceived by Phil Berman at the Multihull Company, designed by South African Anton Du Toit, and built by Nexus Yachts in Cape St. Francis, South Africa, the Balance is a fascinating addition to the multihull field. The question with every catamaran these days is where it falls on the continuum from payload to performance. Is it more luxury condo? Or more sailboat? From the outset this Balance was conceived as a performance-cruising sailboat first, with decisions working backwards from a hull-fineness ratio that would guarantee steady runs of 10 knots or more. After that come the luxurious living spaces.

Notice the innovative helm arrangement at the bulkhead, offering two steering positions on an articulating binnacle: up high for all-round visibility; or down low and sheltered under the hard top. Note, too, the dearth of stainless steel—rails and posts are created from lightweight composites. Finally, take note of hull shape and the perfect absence of chines or other tricks that add volume to the interior at the expense of turbulence in the water flow.

In Cape Town last December I sailed Ondine, hull number 1, shortly after her initial launch. We made a joyful 11 knots of boatspeed, close reaching under Table Mountain into 14 knots of breeze. We’ll have a full review of this boat later in the season. In the meantime, you’ll have the chance to see her for yourself at the Miami International Boatshow (February 11–15, 2016).

For more information, contact The Multihull Company.
www.multihullcompany.com
215-508-2704

The post Fast cruising cat: the Balance 526 at Miami appeared first on Cruising World.

Catamaran skipper, Sasha Bading, and his crew were racing their way to Florida for the upcoming Miami Boat show onboard their Balance 526 catamaran, Ondine when they rescued three French sailors from a sinking motor cat near Mona Passage during the night of January 23rd.

The U.S. Coast Guard in Puerto Rico forwarded Pan Pan call from the French sailors who were on their way from the Dominican Republic to Martinique when the crew of Ondine responded to the call.

After being alerted to the Pan Pan, the crew kept a sharp lookout and were able to spot a distant flashing light miles away. They sailed to the light and found the sailors, brought them on board, and called the Coast Guard.

Getting the French sailors on board Ondine in the large seas was no easy feat, yet was done so without damage to her. The U.S. Coast Guard arrived at the scene shortly thereafter to transfer the sailors and return them to land.

Congratulations Sasha and crew for a job well done.

The post Balance 526 Rescues Sailors from Sinking Vessel appeared first on Cruising World.