{"id":40323,"date":"2016-05-30T16:18:41","date_gmt":"2016-05-30T20:18:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/?p=40323"},"modified":"2023-05-06T17:01:54","modified_gmt":"2023-05-06T21:01:54","slug":"balance-526","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/balance-526-0\/","title":{"rendered":"Balance 526"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n The all epoxy Balance 526 is a performance-oriented couples cruising boat.<\/span>\n Sarah Phillips of Phileon Productions<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\t <\/figcaption>\n <\/section>\n\t\t\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

The Balance 526 was forged in the smithy of this debate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not creating a charter cat, and we\u2019re not creating a racing cat,\u201d says Phil Berman, owner of Balance Catamarans. \u201cWe\u2019re creating a high-performance cruising cat for a couple to sail on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

If the 526 isn\u2019t the first model Berman created with those aims in mind, it is certainly the most successful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s the secret in this boat? It starts with Berman\u2019s build partners at Nexus Yachts (see \u201cThe Artisan Cat Builders of South Africa,\u201d 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 \u2014 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cJonathan Paarman has a no-stainless fetish,\u201d says Berman, referring to the chief laminator at Nexus Yachts. Handrails and posts for radar and antennas are all built from lightweight composites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

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\n Its articulating wheel can be raised or lowered so the skipper can steer from above or below the cockpit hardtop.<\/span>\n Sarah Phillips of Phileon Productions<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\t <\/figcaption>\n <\/section>\n\t\t\n\n\n\n

I sailed hull number one in Cape Town, South Africa, shortly after it launched. Even loaded for long fishing expeditions \u2014 including with a factory-installed ice flaker \u2014 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

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\u2019s hull, while the master cabin lands near the hull\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

The helm station features an articulating wheel pedestal. On some monohulls, we\u2019ve 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 \u201cup,\u201d with full, direct visibility of the deck and sails, or \u201cdown,\u201d on the cockpit sole with full weather protection and visibility through the cabin\u2019s windows \u2014 which are made from tempered glass, not Lexan, which can craze over time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Tim Murphy is a CW editor-at-large and a longtime Boat of the Year judge.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Balance 526 is a true couple\u2019s cruising cat you\u2019ll want to take sailing and anchoring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29294,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"BS_author_type":"BS_author_is_guest","BS_guest_author_name":"Tim Murphy","BS_guest_author_url":"","hydra_display_date":"20160530","hydra_display_updated":false,"_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":"167","_yoast_wpseo_metadesc":"The Balance 526 is a true couple\u2019s cruising cat you\u2019ll want to take sailing and anchoring.","_yoast_wpseo_title":"Balance 526 %%sep%% %%sitename%%","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","arc_story_id":"DK3SOECEERDKR2BRBKTZNC7DXQ","arc_website_url":"balance-526-0\/","custom_permalink":"balance-526-0\/","arc_subtype":"right-sidebar","arc_exclude_from_feeds":false,"sponsored":false,"sponsored_label":"Sponsored Content","sponsored_display_label":false,"sponsored_image":0,"post_right_rail":true,"post_right_rail_ad_1":true,"post_right_rail_ad_2":true,"post_right_rail_ad_3":false,"post_right_rail_ad_4":false,"post_right_rail_recirc":true,"fixed_anchor_ad":true,"post_top_ad":true,"post_off_ramp":true,"post_taboola":false,"labels":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[167],"tags":[323,322,794,211,298,210,227,195],"acf":[],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40323"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}