Balance 526

A refined bluewater voyager.

- Peter Nielsen

The growing popularity of catamarans for blue water sailing has spawned a number of designs aimed at sailors who want some speed along with their comfort, yet either don’t want, or can’t afford to go down the high-tech carbon-fiber route. Builders like Catana and Outremer are the best-known companies that cater to this market, but there are a number of others, many of them based in South Africa, which is tied with France as the current hotbed of multi hull development. One of the newer entrants into this competitive field is Balance Catamarans, whose second model, the Balance 526, we took for a spin on a sunny day off Fort Lauderdale.

DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION

Balance is the brainchild of veteran multihull broker Phil Berman, who wanted to distill his decades of experience into a line of dedicated fast cruising boats. Experienced naval architect Anton du Toit put flesh on the bones of Berman’s requirements, and builder Jonathan Paarman of South Africa’s Nexus Yachts made the creation come to life.

The aim was to build a cruising cat that was easy to sail shorthanded, would look after its crew at sea, could carry all the cruising comforts that one could reasonably expect and could sail at average speeds of 10 to 12 knots. The hull forms exhibit no chines or protrusions, and wave-piercing bows and fine forward sections give way to wider, flared sections aft. High bridge deck clearance and a pair of dagger boards combine to provide a sea kindly ride and good windward ability.