BALANCE 526 - 11 FEATURES EVERY CATAMARAN SHOULD HAVE

all right the helm's a little heavier than clarity oh it's balanced pretty well like you can definitely feel every little bit can i have it can i have one [Music] we've admired these boats from afar for a long time but how does a ride aboard one come about well it turns out that birds of a feather flocked together we were down in the isolated ragged islands of the southern bahamas where it's pretty easy to find your own patch of water we ended up sharing this very large bay got to talking and it turns out these guys have got a lot of ocean experience and a lot of ocean experience aboard various catamarans they chose a balance 526 and we were eager to figure out why we were so impressed with the bow we found 11 features that we now believe every catamaran builder should integrate [Music] where exactly to control the boat from is a huge consideration for designers the basic conflict is this your main indoor living area is in front of your main working area so how do you get a good view forward to see where you're going how do you get a good view of the sails and then how do you lead all of those controls for the engines and the rudders and the sails to one spot that serves all purposes and how do you do that without taking up all your room in the cockpit well we think that balance has the perfect solution and it's called the versa helm yes the helm can move more on that coming up as we weigh anchor todd is at the lower steering position and notice his view forward the view is great and part of that has to do with the flat tempered double paned glass that's used on this boat not only is it very strong and you can see through it very easily but when and if it is broken it's much much easier to replace than the lexan plastic used on a lot of production boats that can be extremely expensive to recreate the compound curves that you'll find on a leopard or a lagoon or a fontan pajeo believe it or not simply raising the mainsail on a modern catamaran can be a bit of a hassle these sails have full length battens that often get hooked on the lazy jacks or the rope guides that help to bring the sail back down on this boat there are hay racks alongside the boom these are great for several reasons first of all you can stand on them in case you need to get over the top of the sail but also the hay rack helps to support the flaked sail and spread the lazy jacks out so that the battens don't hook on the lazy jacks quite as often you can probably guess that the balance is a performance cruiser they have tried to strike a balance between performance and cruising accommodations and like most performance catamarans galileo has got daggerboards they're actually an option on the balance but what's great about the daggerboards on this boat is that they are flush to the deck keeping the side decks unencumbered we were in shallow waters and weren't racing today so todd had the boards halfway down yet look at these performance numbers in just under 15 knots of true wind speed we're doing 11 knots through the water [Music] our apparent wind angle looks to be about 35 to 38 degrees so we're pinching up pretty good and while it was a pretty flat day relatively speaking check out how smooth the ride is megan's not even holding on to anything you feel like you can sail this by yourself yeah yeah no it's easy everything's right here um except for the main sheets which isn't too far away and it's a big sale plan but it's pretty easily controlled yeah which is wonderful for short tacking because you just go back and forth easily and not have to make any fuss about it if you really want to fine-tune the main and put the get a nice twist in it then you can be a little bit more finicky but if you're just going in a channel it's just turning the helm over you could see the twist in the leech that todd is talking about and this brings up another design feature that we'd love to have on clarity and we think most cats should have and that is german sheeting we don't know the origin of that term but it refers to two separate sheets that go to the boom end instead of a mainsheet traveler which we think is overly complicated and a little hard to adjust especially when the sails loaded up turning our attention to the sharp end of the boat let's talk about the bow sprit we think every catamaran should have a bowsprit for flying a code zero or an asymmetrical spinnaker the one on the balance is perfect in our opinion first of all it's made out of aluminum so if it's damaged it's relatively easy to repair or replace and it goes all the way back to the bridge deck so compression forces are taken into account the anchor is hanging way up front instead of back by the bridge deck and there are multiple pad eyes for your code zero or your asymmetrical spinnaker the fine entry valves on this boat are not gonna make the list of design features because they're just not appropriate for every bow but i'll tell you the more boats we've sailed with this feature the more we come to appreciate the ride let's head inside and take a look at a couple features that are unique to the balance first of all the master head is aft in most owner's version boats they put these up front and instead balance has put the master state room up forward now the benefit here is you have better air circulation in the front of the boat the downside if there is one is that you're sleeping a thwart ship instead of four and aft and that can bother some folks heading up into the salon it's very functional and there's definitely an emphasis on bringing the outdoor living space inside and you need to because the inside living space is relatively small for a 52 plus foot boat heading down into the porthole this would be considered guest quarters we've got our washing machine and a couple of comfortable births with just one shared head and we think that makes a lot of sense from our other videos you probably know that we're big fans of the elevated helm position like we've got on our leopard 46 but we don't always want to be at that elevated position sometimes being down low and in protection from the weather makes a lot more sense the question is how can you have both and the balance solves this problem with something called the versa helm and these are starting to be adopted by other builders like utromer so if you want to steer below you just drop it down here [Music] and then you can tell here with great visibility close that off and then when we're sailing in cold weather we have an enclosure on the sides cool yeah all right you know what you're doing here uh theoretically i do all right the helm's a little heavier than clarity but it's you can definitely feel every little bit and it's also it's balanced pretty well like there's a whole bunch of helm either side [Music] are you like i am i am there we go yeah now we're getting wet around 20 20 to 22 somewhere we'll put a wreath in and then the second one around 22 to 24 and then the third around 27 to 30. and then beyond that uh you're just hoping you're doing something else right yeah once you get up to 35. [Music] as we're wrapping things up i wanted to touch on three more design traits that i would love to see in the production catamaran market first of all overall lower profiles and flatter decks there are several benefits here that wouldn't cost builders a dime first of all the structures are going to be stiffer and they're going to sail better with lower center of effort but also easier to walk on the flatter decks and easier to mount things like solar panels now this next one isn't really a design or build feature but it's more a production method and these are epoxy laminate boats but they are painted and paint has so many benefits over gel coat gel coat really takes a lot of upkeep with polishing and waxing paint you keep it clean and it's gonna outperform the gel coat by a long stretch this last one i think is a big one the balance offers optional dagger boards you can get fixed keels or the dagger boards and it just seems to me if you're spending seven eight nine hundred thousand dollars or maybe even a million plus on a production boat shouldn't you be able to order optional dagger boards [Music] of course we're talking apples to oranges this is not a production boat this is a semi-custom boat and the price tag reflects it it's creeping up on 1.7 million dollars delivered and sail away it's nearly impossible to dingy away from a boat like galileo and not have just a little twinge of boat envy but for that kind of money we could buy quadruplet leopard 46s and go around having match races which actually sounds like a lot of fun the point is the best kind of boat is the one you can afford to take off with now so for us clarity fits that bill but it's fascinating to check out the innovations from the smaller high-end builders history teaches us that innovations eventually trickle down to the broader market especially if we demand it so if you're out there shopping for a boat hey you might want to ask them if painting's an option or if you could get the bow with daggerboards if there's a market for it they'll build them that way big thanks to todd and judy owners of galileo for taking us sailing and a special thanks to our patrons you're making these videos happen megan is already hard at work on next week's video we're gonna take you back through the raggeds for more adventures and we're gonna delve into a really touchy subject boat names take care everybody talk to you next week [Music] wow you

Channel: The O'Kellys

Views: 161,093

Keywords: Balance catamarans, catamaran design, Versa-Helm, versahelm, naval architecture, sailing, cruising, Ragged Islands, Bahamas, cruising life, sailing life

Id: 78E1_-Sbe44

Length: 15min 9sec (909 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 22 2021