Design


Balance celebrates its 10th anniversary with an owners rally in Saint Martin during the Caribbean Multihull Challenge


than 24 hours ahead of a close rival that was widely assumed to be faster. It was a remarkable result for a comfortable 16-metre cruising cat, not far off the pace of the 2014 winner, the VOR70 Maserati. Norhi’s win may have surprised some


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sailors in Europe, but not in the US where Balance Catamarans has wonmajor awards and earned an excellent reputation, not least for performance. Nor was it a surprise in South Africa, where the boats are built and are widely known to have a first class pedigree. Balance was established in 2013


by Philip Berman, a Hobie Cat world champion and author of the bestselling book Catamaran Sailing From Start To Finish. Subsequently a successful offshore multihull racer, an accomplished ocean cruiser and a leading yachtbroker for several decades, Berman was among


he stand-out performer in this year’s Cape to Rio Race was the Balance 526 Norhi, which took line honours and finished more


‘Upwind VMG is a particular strength’


the first to notice a gap in the market. There were comfortable cruising cats designed for charter, which weren’t a lot of fun to sail, and high-performance boats designed for racing, which weren’t fun for a family to live on and couldn’t carry a cruising payload – but there were very few boats between those two extremes. ‘I kept coming back to a lingering question,’ Berman explains. ‘Why aren’t there high- performance catamarans that still offer onboard comfort and liveability?’ Balance was founded to fill that gap and there are several key factors in its burgeoning success. The concept for the boats is a distillation of


Berman’s experience and knowledge, as an expert catamaran sailor but also as a specialist multihull broker who sold more than a thousand boats in his previous job. The naval architecture is by Anton du Toit, renowned for his high-end custom cruising cat designs, working closely with Berman. And the build quality is a testament to the composite skills and craftsmanship of


some of the leading boatbuilders in South Africa, which has a world class reputation for multihull production. The Balance brand began with a


partnership between Berman and the Paarman brothers – Jonathan, Mark and Roger – who had recently set up their own shipyard, Nexus Yachts, to build fast cruising catamarans at St Francis in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. St Francis is famous for its surf break,


which featured in the iconic film Endless Summer and the Paarmans are legends in the surfing community, especially Jonathan who was one of the world’s top ranking big-wave surfers for many years, as well as a highly regarded builder of boards and boats. His brother Mark, meanwhile, had a successful career in the tough St Francis-based squid fishing industry. They had surfing in common with Berman and there was also a Hobie Cat connection, as Jonathan had built the boats for the Hobie World Championships in 1979, which were staged in South Africa – and that was where Berman won his first world title.


The new Balance 620 has both a forward cockpit and dual bulkhead helms. Note the clear view forward from the cockpit 84 SEAHORSE


DALE STAPLES


PETER GUNN


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