NEW Balance Catamarans 526

The initial inspiration for the Balance 526 arose from our passion to design and build, from the ground up, the finest performance voyaging catamaran ever conceived for a couple or small family who really want to go places in speed and comfort yet carry significant cruising payloads. We set out to design the 526 to be simple to operate, to maintain, and enormously gracious to live on.

EXPERIENCE MATTERS
The 526 is the brainchild of multihull racer, author and designer Phillip Berman, naval architect Anton Du Toit, and well-known catamaran builder Jonathan Paarman. This exceptional yacht was designed and built by a team with a lifetime of experience sailing, racing, cruising and fabricating blue water catamarans. The 526 is also the byproduct of the enormous fund of direct sailing experience and customer feedback Phillip gained managing the sale of over 500 catamarans through The Multihull Company, the world's largest brokerage firm specializing in the sale of blue-water voyaging catamarans. No design, build and brokerage team has ever assembled the depth of hard-fought experience our team holds in catamaran design and fabrication.

GRACIOUS LIVING, ELEGANT DESIGN
After selling over 500 catamarans we know that our customers wish to turn their yachts into gracious, elegant homes. We've spent hour upon hour examining our interior sight lines. We've profoundly improved upon catamaran living ergonomics - our beds, toilettes and showers, as well as our cabinetry and finishes are truly state-of-the-art. Our European styled interiors have been designed and coordinated by the esteemed Philadelphia design firm, OLC, known for over 25 years as a leader in high-end interior design. (Click here to check out some of our interior designs)

SAILING MADE EASY
With the Balance 526 there is never a need to wait for crew. We've designed her to be easily piloted single-handed. Our self tending blade jib, reefing station, and innovative Versa-helm Trademarked design now make it possible for almost anyone to single-hand our catamaran safely in any sort of weather.

KEEPING IT SIMPLE
We designed the Balance 526 to be as simple to operate and maintain as possible. You want to go sailing, not hang around marina's cajoling contractors to repair your overly complex systems. We have worked overtime to design the simplest, most bullet- proof wiring, plumbing, and mechanical systems possible. We do so based on our lifetime of experience as boat builders and brokers who have attended hundreds of surveys. We've chosen the vendors who produce the best and most reliable products because nothing second best is good enough for us.

DUAL DAGGERBOARDS
The 526 can be configured with dual daggerboards for those seeking maximum performance under sail, or with high performance fixed keels to reduce operational complexity. To understand the trade-offs and performance differences, please see the study we conducted with the Wolfson Unit at the University of Southampton. The fully retractable dual daggerboards draws less than 3' 6" inches of water when retracted. Shallow waters are no longer off limits. Upwind performance is dramatically improved with the boards in the down position, while off wind performance is enhanced with the boards raised. In dangerous cross seas, with the "boards up, " the 526 will side-slip to avoid the tripping effect associated with large fin keeled cats.

VERSA HELM DESIGN - BECAUSE ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL
The first of its kind in catamaran design, our all-weather Versahelm design blends the best of both worlds for serious voyagers. In fair weather you open up the sliding hard top and sail upstairs in open air. In inclement weather you close the hardtop and drop our cantilevered wheel into the aft cockpit. From here you pilot in total protection looking through our large vertical salon windows. The down position enables you to see all four corners of the yacht for docking and offers a safe, warm and comfortable place to sit watch and pilot the 526 in any sort of weather. We have labored sedulously to eliminate the ugliness and problems of two-tiered hard tops that must be covered with plastic or glass for cold weather sailing. We see no reason why a modern catamaran must look like a fishing trawler but find every reason to believe she must often be piloted like one - in any sort of weather in comfort and safety. Sailing must be fun whenever it can be but warm and safe went it cannot.

Fatigue is the start of every crisis when voyaging and at Balance Catamarans we design our yachts to fight this threat at every turn.

Most catamaran builders appear to assume everyone is the same size, forcing shorter people into living with helm stations and sight lines that are unworkable, or constraining taller people into contorted postures when helming or operating winches. At Balance we find this unacceptable. We've designed the 526 with helm chairs that adjust up and down as well as fore and aft. We've also designed a unique retracting helm standing platform that can be raised to increase sight lines for those who wish to pilot "over the bows" up narrow channels or crab pot cluttered rivers and estuaries. If you are shorter than most, or taller than most, you will celebrate our thoughtful design.

LIGHT, STRONG AND SAFE
Speed is safety provided your yacht is engineered and built to stand up to the worst weather nature delivers. The Balance 526 is strong, but also light. She 526 weighs less than 12.5 tons equipped for voyaging. She is built using a combination of E-glass, Carbon, Closed Cell Foam, Composite Bulkheads and the entire laminate structure is Epoxy. If there is a need to run from weather, or position away from it, the Balance 526 will take you safely where you need to go with alacrity. Fast, rugged, unsinkable.

SPEED
The 526 will obtain top speeds in excess of 27 knots (One of our owners has already proven this to us!). Our primary aim, however, was to design catamarans which will sustain high average speeds, fully laden, without being hard-pressed. The 526 was designed to sustain speeds between 10 and 12 knots over 24-hour periods. With several of them now already sailing this has been proven, including one 526 owner who averaged over 11 knots in a four day period.

SEA KINDLY, HIGH CLEARANCE, HEAVY PAYLOAD CARRYING HULLS
The 526 was designed carefully to center the weights as much as possible to dampen fore and aft pitching. She carries a sharp, high bow to pierce the seas and high underwing clearance to avoid slapping and pounding. No protrusions or chines are found in our hulls. They are "pure-form" shapes that inhibit drag, increase speed, and reduce sea-induced motion. Our hulls also minimize drag regardless of the payloads you carry. As payloads grow so too does the beam of our hulls, increasing hydrodynamic drag incrementally for the loads you need to carry. Unlike so many flat sided performance cats that sail smartly when empty but slow dramatically with loads, the 526 will only see marginal speed degradation when loaded for cruising.

360 DEGREE INSIDE-OUTSIDE VISION
In keeping with modern design the 526 aft cockpit and salon floors are on the same level, increasing the openness of the salon to the aft cockpit to provide amazing visibility in all directions whether inside or outside. Our salon carries over 6 feet 8 inches of headroom and high, vertical windows to present a panoramic vision of the world outside. No matter whether you are standing or sitting in the salon, or the aft cockpit, you will be connected to the sea. This not only makes piloting the boat safer, but living more pleasant.

REEFING AND LINE HANDLING MADE EASY
The Balance 526 reefing station enables a single handed sailor to hoist, reef, and trim the mainsail and genoa with ease. At Balance we believe reefing and sail handling should be managed as near as possible to the primary helm station in a dedicated work area. Our design places all of the winches and stoppers in the ideal location for ease of use. Raising the mainsail, reefing, and adjusting the sheets has never been easier. No more reaching up or over winches in contorted postures to lift or close a stopper. No more spaghetti piling up on the floor or tripping over throttles or instruments. Our line storage systems are the best ever devised. Nobody has thought through these issues with the intensity of our design and build team to finally achieve a solution to these persistent design flaws found on dated bulkhead helm designs.

HEAT RESISTENT DESIGN WITH MASSIVE NATURAL VENTILLATION
The 526 salon roof carries a brow over her large vertical windows to reduce heat buildup inside the salon. In hot tropical locations you no longer need to cover your salon windows with UV covers or constantly run the air conditioning. We've set a new bar in natural air flow with our unique "Forced-Air-Dorade" hatches that power air from the forward cabins aft in the most efficient and cleverly designed manner yet devised. We've also designed as many of our hatches and port-lights to be left open in a tropical downpour.

Balance Catamarans, and VersaHelm, are protected Trademarks of Balance Catamarans LLC.

Quote - Multihulls Magazine
"In addition to being a yacht of the finest quality, the Balance 526 helm station design breaks significant new ground. "

"The Balance 526 is certainly no condomaran. She is clearly a racehorse coming in light ship at just over 10 tons. To place that into perspective, two Balance 526 cats weigh less than one Lagoon 52."

Quote - Multihulls Quarterly
"It was clear that Berman and Dutoit had spent hundreds of hours to design what they felt was the ultimate blue-water performance.