Sailing World Magazine’s annual Boat of the Year tests are conducted in Annapolis, Maryland, following the US Sailboat Show. With independent judges exhaustively inspecting the boats on land and putting them through their paces on the water, this year’s fleet of new performance-sailing boats spanned from small dinghies to high-tech bluewater catamarans. Here’s the best of the best from our 2022 Boat of the Year nominees »

Out yonder in the vast cornfields of Wisconsin, boatbuilders in Tyvek suits are infusing polyester glass hulls as fast as they can, buffing out one gleaming white dinghy nearly every 66 hours in a full-tilt routine to place the latest American-made dinghy into the hands of sailors clamoring to get a piece of the new great thing in small-craft sailing: the remarkably versatile Melges 15, our 2022 Boat of the Year. No longer shall youth and adult sailors be cast to their individual dinghy classes, and our judges agree. This one allows all ages to play together in one remarkable 15-footer.

“It’s stable, forgiving and accessible to a wide swath of physiques, a platform where you can learn to sail it and then transition quickly to racing,” says Eddie Cox, the youngster of Melges Performance Sailboats who’s been involved with the Melges 15’s development from inception to launch. “The boat fits a wide variety of sailors, and that’s what our goal was. It’s family-orientated sailing, which is important to us because that’s how Melges boats are.”

While the Reichel/Pugh-designed Melges 15 was originally introduced in May 2020, its BOTY appearance was delayed to 2021, and clearly neither the class nor the builder was waiting for its award. In less than a year, multiple fleets have been seeded and growing across the country, with more than 150 boats sailing and another 175 or so already on order as of October 2021. Demand is, of course, outpacing supply, but the folks out in Zenda don’t mind that one bit.

The most notable trait the judges noted as they observed the boat on land during October’s United States Sailboat Show is its deep cockpit, which puts the boat in a similar space as the Club 420. But that’s about where comparisons end. In fact, during post-sailing deliberations, the judges found it impossible to identify another doublehanded dinghy quite like it, aside from the 25-year-old RS200 class, which is only active in Europe. So, there’s a golden opportunity for the Melges crew in the non-skiff, doublehanded asymmetric-spinnaker market.

The Melges 15’s best trait under sail, however, is its stability. The hull’s wide after sections and sharp chines push a lot of buoyancy outboard, says Greg Stewart. Examine the hull profile from aside the boat on its dolly and it’s easy to see the rocker too, which encourages early planing and a smooth ride uphill while also making it responsive to crew-weight adjustments as wind conditions change.

On deck, the judges took note of the open foredeck, which allows you to safely and comfortably walk or crawl to the bow should you need to when landing or correcting the inevitable spinnaker snafu. Mounted on the foredeck is the asymmetric spinnaker turtle with a stainless-steel throat bar and aluminum retracting sprit. The single-line spinnaker hoist and retrieval system leads to a cam cleat near the mast base and runs aft to a turning block at the transom, so either the helmsman or crew can manage the hoist. Pin-stop adjustable jib tracks are mounted on the side tanks, and sheets lead to ratchet blocks with stand-up rubber boots to provide the appropriate cross-sheeting angles.

Here, in the crew’s playground, a lot of design focus went into the height, width and construction of the boat’s backbone, making it a comfortable seat to straddle in lighter winds. The aluminum-reinforced centerboard box, Cox says, also provides extra strength in the trunk and allows Melges to build the boat more economically. The trunk tapers downward sharply aft toward the floor to provide an anchor point for the mainsheet block. From there, it’s a clean run aft with only the skipper’s hiking straps.

While the trend in dinghy design has been toward open transoms, doing so requires raised floors in order to drain water. To maintain a deep cockpit, Melges instead opted for tried-and-true stainless-steel Elvström/Anderson Bailers, as well as flaps in the transom should the sleigh ride be especially wet and wild.

Aiming to keep the rig tuning quick and simple, the two-part tapered aluminum Selden rig has a single-length forestay and adjustable turnbuckles, while gross settings for varying crew combinations can be made with adjustable spreader brackets for rake and spreader length.

“Put a Loos tension gauge on the forestay, tune the rig up until you hit 19 on the gauge, and that’s your base setting,” Cox says. “When it gets windy, put on a few more turns at the shrouds and that’s how you get to 24, which is your heavy-air setting. It’s all pretty simple. The boom-top mounted vang is anchored on the mast with the sliding track on the boom, which is a clean solution to keep the crew’s runway clear and have a powerful tool to depower the rig (the cleat is on a mast-mounted swivel).

The centerboard and rudder are both aluminum with rubber end caps, which is the go-to solution for maintenance-free appendages these days—less time fairing and fussing means more time sailing, and this is especially true for boats destined for sailing and yacht-club fleets.

“Our goal is to help the sport grow and help racing grow,” Cox says. “We think one problem with American sailing is getting younger sailors out of high school or college sailing into their next race boat. Going fast and being able to go 20 knots downwind hooks people—we need to make sure we are making sailing fast, fun and exciting.”

When the judges got their time in the boat with a fresh 15-knot northwest wind, they witnessed firsthand what Cox had promised. To prove a point of its versatility, veteran judge and college sailing coach Chuck Allen commandeered the 15 alone, set the red spinnaker, and was immediately a projectile—soon a red speck on the horizon.

“The stability of this really opens it to such a wide range of sailors,” Allen says. “The build quality is superb, and it is so clean. It’s classic Melges. They really took their time with it before putting it out there. Its stated purpose is right on target, the price point is good, and with that stability it sails incredibly well upwind and downwind.”

Once they were able to wrestle the tiller from Allen’s hands, fellow judges Greg Stewart and David Powlison, tipping the scales at 420 pounds combined, set off on a few speed burns of their own, climbing to windward in 12 knots of breeze at narrow angles, and effortlessly planing off downwind, knocking through jibes with ease after only a few minutes in the boat.

“Of all the boats we sailed, it was the one I really didn’t want to get off of,” Stewart says. “For me, selecting it as our Boat of the Year comes down to execution of the build and its performance. It’s exceptional in all ways. Everything is so well-integrated and clean. It starts with a good designer, and then it’s good product development and craftsmanship—there’s nothing on this boat that you don’t need.”

Powlison seconds Stewart’s praise for the boat, especially the part about how it serves such a wide variety of crew combinations. “It’s not just a race boat, but a boat to go sail and have fun with anyone, anytime.”

The post Sailing World’s 2022 Boat of the Year appeared first on Sailing World.

Sailing World Magazine’s annual Boat of the Year tests are conducted in Annapolis, Maryland, following the US Sailboat Show. With independent judges exhaustively inspecting the boats on land and putting them through their paces on the water, this year’s fleet of new performance-sailing boats spanned from small dinghies to high-tech bluewater catamarans. Here’s the best of the best from our 2022 Boat of the Year nominees »

So, you’re in search of a sharp-looking yacht you can do the big annual race with and then comfortably take the spouse and family over the horizon for a getaway? Yes, you are, and there are plenty of boats new and old that check both boxes just fine, but how many of those quasi-cruisers would you seriously show up in at a big-boat world championship and confidently go to battle? Not many. With the Grand Soleil 44, however, you can, and you will.

Grand Soleil’s current chief designer, Matteo Polli, of Italy, earned a reputation early on in his career as one of the best young rule optimizers in the business, taking good designs and making them better. He’s been retained by both Italia Yachts and Grand Soleil, a reputable brand whose boats are built by Cantiere del Pardo, which has been building custom and production boats in Italy for nearly a half-century. Under Italia and Grand Soleil, Polli’s designs have bagged titles at successive ORC world championships, with the GS44 winning its division handily in 2021—albeit with a top-shelf pro crew and a grand-prix-caliber program. Still, with the GS44, Polli and the team of engineers and designers at Grand Soleil now command Europe’s coveted high-performance-crossover niche with a yacht that meets all of ORC’s cruiser and racer requirements (head, galley, storage, settee table, etc.) with a high-functioning race boat that’s also competitively priced.

The GS44 is available with either a racing or cruising deck layout; the boat our judges tested in Annapolis featured the racing deck, with six winches and a split German-style mainsheet system. As with most boats these days, an owner can choose from different keel options; this particular test boat came with the 7-foot-9-inch ORC-optimized keel. There are different sprit choices as well; the tested boat had the 2-meter carbon sprit, which is glassed to the hull. Interior component upgrades include foam-cored furniture and carbon tables.

The hull is vacuum-infused up to the waterline with vinylester and foam core, and a structural glass grid is laminated to the hull (not glued) with carbon reinforcement. While there’s nothing revolutionary with this approach, having the engine, keel and mast all tied into the grid makes for a noticeably stiff boat behind bright and light cabinetry. With its open and airy interior layout, the judges noted plenty of headroom, handholds, and space to manage and organize sails.

“The build is exceptional,” Greg Stewart says. “It’s all very clean, a high-quality and simple interior. Even under the floorboards and in the engine space everything was very tidy.”

With 14 feet of max beam, there’s plenty of volume inside the boat. You step down the wide and end-beveled companionway steps to an L-shaped galley to port and a giant shower and head to starboard. A big C-shaped settee and drop-down table are to port, opposite a long settee with a small nav station against the forward bulkhead. Forward of the mast is a large and open V-berth and head that take up nearly one‑third of the boat. All doors are solid wood with magnetic latches.

A race crew won’t be spending much time below, but on deck, where the action is, everything is where it’s supposed to be to get the boat around the course or down the track efficiently. “Of all the big boats we sailed, this is my favorite,” Chuck Allen says. “It has a racing feel and is really fun to drive—upwind and downwind.”

Fellow judge Dave Powlison agrees, noting that all the sail controls are set up correctly and easy to use.

“A lot of the boats in this performance-cruiser category tend to lead everything to the helmsman, which leaves it all jammed up in the back of the boat,” Stewart says. “This is a more normal race-boat layout, with a racing pit, the winches and the jammers all in the right places—everything works smoothly. I also like the wheel setup. It has a nice feel side to side, and having the mainsheet system immediately forward of the wheel is good. We had a great breeze for the boat, and that made it exciting. Upwind, it locked in right away and felt solid.”

The physical demand on the judges and short pickup crew for the test sail in 15 knots was eased by a small self-tacking jib that led to the cabin-top winches.

“The boat was underpowered with the little jib, which would be fine for cruising and taking it easy,” Allen says. “But it’s got a big main, and that was easy to control. It would have been much better with a proper headsail, but when we put the kite up—a beautiful A2—the boat really took off downwind.”

Inside jibes, he adds, are easy, with the clew able to get around the headstay without any problems. “It’s a good-size sprit,” he says, “so there’s plenty of room there to get the kite around quickly.”

The boat’s limit of positive stability (124) was calculated with 14 crew, but it is regularly raced with nine or 10 crew, according to the manufacturer. “I’d say this is a boat where you’d want to have 10 or 12 people,” Stewart says. “If it’s really windy, you’ll definitely want to stack the rail. It’s got a good stability number for this type of boat, though. The [stability] limit for offshore races is 115, so this could easily do any of the big long-distance races: the Bermuda Race, the Fastnet and the Transpac.”

With an ORC general purpose handicap of 555 seconds per mile, Stewart adds, the GS44 is a solid choice for a midsize boat.

“It’s a wide and powerful hull shape, but they softened out the corners, so it’s a cleaner wake in a lot of corners,” he says. “People are figuring out the chine is really only good for reaching, and a lot of the time you’re dragging that corner of the boat too much. But with this boat, when you lean it over, it gets longer quick.”

The boat was tested with an asymmetric spinnaker, but it would be easy to add a standard pole and symmetric setup for ORC racing, Stewart adds. “If you’re doing the windward and leeward regattas, like the ORC Worlds where there are five or six buoy races and two distance races, you’re going to want to go with the pole and masthead kites—just round the weather mark, square back, and go straight downwind at 170 true [wind angle].”

Throughout the week of sea trials in Annapolis, the judges sailed a wide variety of crossover designs, many leaning more heavily to the cruising set, so it’s hardly surprising the GS44 won unanimous favor when it came time to narrow down their top choice. 

“We all thought it’s a great sailing boat, and it was presented well by the Grand Soleil guys,” Allen says. “This is set up as a race boat. For example, there was no cockpit table to get in the way like there was on all the other boats we sailed. Yes, it’s a racer-cruiser or high-performance cruiser—whatever they want to call it—but we all like it because we could easily see its racing potential.”

The post 2022 Boat of the Year: Best Crossover appeared first on Sailing World.

Sailing World Magazine’s annual Boat of the Year tests are conducted in Annapolis, Maryland, following the US Sailboat Show. With independent judges exhaustively inspecting the boats on land and putting them through their paces on the water, this year’s fleet of new performance-sailing boats spanned from small dinghies to high-tech bluewater catamarans. Here’s the best of the best from our 2022 Boat of the Year nominees »

As interest in doublehanded offshore racing piqued with the expectations it would be an Olympic sailing discipline in 2024, so too did the development and production of several purpose-built 30-footers. Dehler Yachts, Germany’s big production boatbuilder, jumped into the action with its own 30-footer, and as we’d expect of a Judel/Vrolijk and Co.-designed race boat, this one is an all-business shorthanded racing machine jam-packed with cool features found on grand‑prix boats twice its size.

“You can tell they started with a blank slate because the boat is so well-integrated with the design and construction—from bow to stern,” Greg Stewart says. “It hits its design purpose spot on. It’s a complete small offshore one-design, and it’s obvious there was a lot of development required to get things so right.”

Prototypes and mock-ups after mock-ups were required, Dehler says, to efficiently accommodate a lot of boat handling and living in such a compact craft. Virtually every rope on the boat spills into the cockpit, which is the way of life in shorthanded sailing, where everything happens at the back of the boat. Vigilance with line keeping, therefore, is paramount. That and carefully executed and planned maneuvers. In full-tilt conditions, there will be a lot going on in the cockpit, Stewart says, but everything’s easily at hand.

“All the control-line leads are well thought out,” he adds, pointing to the smooth-operating traveler controls and the individual gross and fine-tuned mainsheet flip cleats mounted on the cockpit floor.

Powlison’s first impression at the dock was that the boat would be challenging to manage, but “once we went sailing, it all was logical. Yes, there’s a lot of line management, but once you’re disciplined to do that, the boat is much easier to sail than it looks.”

With the trio of judges and the owner piled on board during the test sail, it was immediately obvious that two is company and three is definitely a crowd. “It’s also not the type of boat where you’ll want to spontaneously invite an inexperienced crew [to go race],” Powlison says. “You will really need to know what you’re doing, but once you do get comfortable with everything, it will be a really easy boat to sail well.”

Ben Corson, the Annapolis-based owner of our test boat, had spent the better part of a year racing with his female partner and tinkering with the boat, and consequently, the boat is meticulously prepared, race-ready and offshore-compliant. There’s no mistaking what’s what and where—labels pasted throughout the boat identify halyards, sail and ballast controls, safety gear and even the electronics manuals.

As a tightly controlled one-design class with ratified rules, owners like Corson can’t do much to the boat as it is, but there’s not much—if anything—an owner would need to change anyway. Everything on the boat, the judges agreed, works as it should. Adjustable backstays, for example, lead forward to clutches mounted on the cockpit wall, which allows the backstays to be kept taut or released without having to worry about loading to a winch during a maneuver. With the turn of a locking nut on the tiller arm, the steering system can be adjusted to change rudder toe-in on either side. The traveler track runs nearly the full width of the wide transom, opening up a wide range of adjustability for the 361-square-foot mainsail, and as a bonus, small removable reaching struts open up headsail sheeting angles. Stainless-steel foot braces are easy to deploy and stow, and allow the skipper to lock into a comfortable position over the angled coaming, with great visibility over the bow.

When the boat is powered up and leaning on the chine, Allen says, the sensation is exceptional: “This delivered the best sailing experience of all of the boats we tested. It was easy to tack and jibe, it tracked great, it’s easy to get to the sail controls, and we had no problems whatsoever with wiping out—and we tried hard a few times.”

With Allen on the tiller and Powlison managing the sheets as they started upwind into a 15-knot breeze, Stewart hit the chamfered rail. “My first impression from the rail was how high I was and how it was charging upwind—like a big boat. I couldn’t feel the chop, I didn’t get wet, it didn’t skid out at all. I was also amazed at how solid it felt; there wasn’t one bit of pounding, creaking or anything.”

Eventually, Stewart came off the rail and they filled the ballast tank instead—to the equivalent of 400-plus pounds of rail meat. Allen says the gravity-fed water-ballast system took about five minutes to top off, roughly 30 seconds to transfer during a tack, and less than a minute to drain.

“Once we added the water ballast, the boat just powered forward,” Powlison says. “You can really feel the difference when the boat sits on the chine and just tracks straight ahead.”

Impressed as they were with the Dehler 30’s upwind pace, when they set the big red A2 spinnaker (1,076 square feet) and took off down the bay, they had no doubts about the boat’s downwind potential. They only used three of the five class-sail inventory on board, which includes an A2, an A5, a spinnaker staysail and a Code Zero, and if they had more time and distance, they would have certainly piled on more sail area.

“I could see going with the A5, the J3 and the staysail, and maybe a reefed main in a big breeze,” Allen says. “That would be fun—and wicked fast.”

Lightweight and strong is, of course, the holy grail of every race boat, and here too Dehler delivers with what the judges say is an immaculate cored-hull laminate and good detail in the finish work throughout the boat. Dehler was also keen to leave out extraneous weight from the interior to get the boat to weigh in at just over 6,000 pounds. Without any floorboards (there’s thin foam padding glued to the inner hull skin instead), they’re able to get 6 feet of standing headroom at the companionway (which has a sliding hatch hood on rails) and plenty of sitting headroom forward of the mast and into the V-berth.

To achieve a higher level of the camper-sailor experience, comfortable V-berth cushions and removable mesh hull liners are standard, as is a folding centerline table, rounded wooden bench seats, and backrests that double as pipe berths. With storage cubbies scattered about the boat, a marine toilet with a graywater tank, a two-burner stove and two quarter berths, this little race rocket is definitely a legit weekender too. Lithium-ion batteries and a 9.9 diesel with a retractable Stealth Drive shaft that pulls up flush with the hull will get you where you need to go and keep the electronics suite powered up just fine.

The Dehler 30 was a strong contender for Boat of the Year, but the judges couldn’t dismiss the boat’s biggest limitation: It will get hammered by most rating systems, which makes it a one-trick one-design offshore-racing pony. It is, however, an outstanding design for keen shorthanded sailors looking for a race-ready platform for just over $240,000. If—or when—international class racing ever becomes a real thing, the offshore sailing world will be a better place.

The post 2022 Boat of the Year: Best Offshore Racer appeared first on Sailing World.

Sailing World Magazine’s annual Boat of the Year tests are conducted in Annapolis, Maryland, following the US Sailboat Show. With independent judges exhaustively inspecting the boats on land and putting them through their paces on the water, this year’s fleet of new performance-sailing boats spanned from small dinghies to high-tech bluewater catamarans. Here’s the best of the best from our 2022 Boat of the Year nominees »

Skeptics be warned: The Happy Cat Hurricane is legit. This is the unanimous assessment from our Boat of the Year judging squad after sailing the surprisingly quick and nimble 16-foot inflatable catamaran in 10 knots of breeze. While it delivers exhilarating sailing, it’s much more than a recreational rubber dinghy—it’s an adventure craft, a portable sailboat, a pontoon motorboat, a lazy-river drifter, or anything you want it to be once it’s pumped and splashed.

Grabner is an Austrian manufacturer of all types of inflatable watercraft, which the company has been building since the mid-1980s. The Happy Cat Hurricane came online in 2017, and a carbon-mast version was added in 2019. The Hurricane Carbon, which the judges tested, is the company’s flagship go-fun craft, and apparently, it can’t make them fast enough.

We racers know fiberglass better than we do rubber, but Alex Caslow, of Redbeard Sailing in Baltimore (the US importer), says Grabner’s vulcanized rubber is “tire-quality” and sourced from Continental. All of the Happy Cat’s tubes, he adds, are handmade, glued and welded in Austria, producing high-quality hulls that should last at least 20 years. There’s a seven-year warranty on the hulls, he says, but should you ever need to, $2,000 is your replacement price (per hull). The all-up price for a new boat, with everything you need to go racing or gunkholing, is currently $15,000.

The magic to keeping the Happy Cat’s tubular platform stiff is the anodized aluminum frame that holds it all together. Tension cables crisscrossed beneath the trampolines provide additional stiffness in waves. The frame also serves as attachment points for the trampolines, which are clipped on rather than laced like most catamaran tramps.

The boat, Caslow says, can be assembled in roughly 40 minutes—from taken out of the storage bags to inflated and sails hoisted. Upgrading from the standard manual pump to a 12-volt air pump accelerates the process, of course.

Bags? That’s right. The entire boat and rig fit into four bags collectively small enough to transport in the average-size car trunk. This portability is its primary selling point, especially in Europe, where hundreds of owners and devotees regularly gather to rally and raid on alpine lakes and coastal enclaves. Its second selling point is that it sails as well as most fiberglass recreational catamarans.

“It definitely caught my eye when we first walked up to it,” Chuck Allen says. “The bright-red hulls, the carbon rig, all the ropes, but especially the interesting setup with the rudder and centerboard being on centerline. I’d never sailed a catamaran with a centerboard.

“The hulls are really firm—they feel just like a RIB tube, and all the aluminum framing and wires are nice quality. I was really curious how it would sail, and believe it or not, it sailed like a champ.”

Greg Stewart says his first impression was one of skepticism as well. “It seemed like it would be one of those boats that looked cool on land but would let us down, but it didn’t at all. It sailed amazingly. It tacked well enough that I didn’t have to backwind the jib, and got up to speed again quickly.”

The ability to tack it like a dinghy, Stewart says, is because of the centerboard and because the rudder is mounted in the best place possible. “What makes it steer so well is the rudder is so far aft, which gives you a nice turning moment between it and the centerboard.”

The centerboard has up/down lines that are led to the front beam and cam cleats, but there is a breaker line in case you get into shallow waters. The centerboard casing also acts as an anchor point for the dolphin striker.

The reverse “wave-piercing” bows have a lot of buoyancy down low, Stewart adds. When he was sailing upwind through chop, they “just want to lift and rise up over the wave.” If flying a hull gets a bit too unnerving, he says, a small ease on the mainsheet or a slight bear away makes the boat settle right down with a soft and pillowy landing. Stewart forgot to conduct the obligatory capsize test, but he said afterward that the boat tended to simply slip sideways if the weather hull got too high. The optional masthead float, however, would be a good choice for peace of mind, he says.

“There’s a great sensation of speed,” Powlison reports, especially with the 91-square-foot gennaker. “The Velocitek SpeedPuck that was on the boat was reading 10 to 11 knots regularly, and it wasn’t hard at all to tack or jibe either. The spinnaker clew is pretty high, and the boomless square-top mainsail (124 square feet) makes it really easy to get across the boat.”

“This boat rips,” was Allen’s final assessment. He gave it high marks all around, but what ultimately stole his favor was a browse through Grabner’s catalog, which showcased the Happy Cat’s versatility: Leave the mast in its bag, erect the optional sun awning, and slap on the outboard motor bracket to transform it into an outboard-powered exploration craft and swimming platform. Or strap on extra fore and aft trampolines, load the boat up with camping gear in dry bags, and explore new places.

“Its biggest appeal really is its portability,” Stewart says. “If you don’t have easy access to a yacht club or storage near the water, you can easily keep this in the garage or apartment without taking up much space at all. Throw it in the car and take it wherever you want.”

Assembly, Caslow says, is simple and quick once the hulls are inflated. The tubes slide into grooves in the frame, tension cables are clipped on with carabiners, the trampoline is strapped on, and the mast can be raised by one person once it’s pinned onto the ball joint.

When it’s assembled, the Hurricane Carbon is only 175 pounds, but it is still a bit unwieldy for solo ramp launching. For this particular challenge, Grabner offers flip-up “slip wheels” that mount to the aft beam and stay on the boat while sailing. With your standard big-wheeled catamaran dolly, however, it’s easy to move around and beach-launch. And once you’re underway and zipping along, crew extended on the wire and the soft bounce of the hull on your bottom, you’ll just want to keep on sailing—happy as a cat on nip.

The post 2022 Boat of the Year: Best Dinghy appeared first on Sailing World.

Sailing World Magazine’s annual Boat of the Year tests are conducted in Annapolis, Maryland, following the US Sailboat Show. With independent judges exhaustively inspecting the boats on land and putting them through their paces on the water, this year’s fleet of new performance-sailing boats spanned from small dinghies to high-tech bluewater catamarans. Here’s the best of the best from our 2022 Boat of the Year nominees »

Life, like sailing, is all about balance, says Phil Berman, who, as a teenage Hobie class champion, wrote the authoritative book on catamaran racing. That was way back in the 1980s, but for our Boat of the Year tests, he’s on board the tropical-sunset-wrapped Balance 482 performance catamaran. This South African-built 48-footer is a sabbatical cruiser for sure, but it’s just the sort of cruiser a competitive sailor like Berman would just as well take across a starting line and go for the hardware.

His story may sound familiar, but it’s also the story of this boat. He started a multihull brokerage long ago, and after surveying and selling so many boats, he came to the inevitable conclusion: “I said, ‘You know, I think I can design a better production catamaran, one that isn’t designed for the charter trade, but one that’s going to be a boat that’s as comfortable to sail as it is on anchor.”

That’s the equilibrium Berman strives to achieve in all of his boats, and it is this lens through which our judges evaluated Hull No. 1 of the Balance 482 in Annapolis. “This is a boat that’s fun to sail, but has space to live and is robust enough to sail in the Southern Ocean,” he tells the judges, “and easily sailed singlehanded, if required.”

And with that said, he draws the judges’ attention to the boat’s helm station—the one and only—to starboard. Here, he shows them how he has full command of the engine throttles, and sail trim controls and halyards led through banks of low-profile clutches to three powered winches. Every line—literally every line—leads to this workspace, with the tails disappearing neatly into line boxes. From this vantage point at the helm, he can also see everything forward and above without having to look through a dodger or crazed vinyl. Such protection from the elements, Berman says, isn’t necessary. When the wind and water in your face get to be too much, you can simply disengage the plunger lock on the pedestal and pivot your helm downward into the salon, where there’s a bank of instruments at the ready and great visibility through the boat’s gigantic thick-glass windows.

The Versa Helm, which Berman says he invented and others have adopted, places the inside steering station in the aft cockpit, unlike many other catamaran designs that have the inside helm forward, next to a door that leads to a mast pit and cockpit. With the helm station located aft instead, the Balance’s salon can better utilize the space to fit an expansive galley, a roomy nav station desk, and a convertible queen-size berth when the dinette table is lowered. With dual 48-volt alternators, rigid solar panels on the roof, and all the low-draw galley appliances you could ever possibly need, this is a boat where you could certainly keep the fuel tanks light for racing and disappear off the grid for a while when you’re done banging around the buoys.

“The open layout in the salon is a nice change from what we normally see,” Greg Stewart says. “The up-down steering system actually worked really well, and it was an interesting place to steer a catamaran like this—it was something we’d never done on any of the other cats we’ve sailed. Because you don’t have all the friction of a second helm, the steering was amazingly light and responsive.”

At roughly 26,000 pounds (the stated weight with the cruise-package equipment), the judges deemed the light-ship displacement was about right for a boat of its length and purpose. Cored vinylester hulls and composite cabinetry throughout the interior help keep the weight down while allowing for storage compartments that practically run stem to stern in both hulls. “We’re not doing our laminate schedules on the thin edge of survival,” Berman tells the judges. “We’re building a boat that’s robust and capable of sailing in the Southern Ocean.”

The philosophy of the 482, he adds, is that a couple (“typically in their 50s and 60s”) would be capable of taking the boat on extended cruises or daysailing it with ease. For the latter purpose, the 82 percent working jib is self-tacking, and the 964-square-foot mainsail is set on a bridle instead of a transom-mounted traveler. “Rather than dealing with a traveler, you set the bridal stoppers for the wind you have,” Berman says, “and with that, you can short-tack all day long.”

The 482’s ability to tack efficiently and track well upwind is mainly due to the deep, high-profile carbon daggerboards, Stewart says. “The foil profiles are good, and the boards are plenty deep.”

The judges sail-tested the boat with the working jib in 6 to 10 knots of breeze, and Chuck Allen felt it was a bit underpowered, but Stewart said a few more knots of breeze would have made it come alive. Even with the small jib, the boat was matching wind speeds, he adds, and sailing at decent angles upwind. When they rolled out the screecher—no surprise—the fun meter shot up instantly.

Furling spinnakers, of course, require careful handling to ensure a proper roll, and on the Balance, there’s good working space on the foredeck to snake and stow these sails. Berman points to the raised aluminum longeron as a key feature; it eliminates a tripping hazard on the forward trampoline and provides a wide and firm runway to access headsail tack fittings.

Approximately 35,000 man-hours go into making the Balance as strikingly good-looking on the outside as it is inside, and squeezed into 25 feet of beam are sophisticated systems that are all easily accessible for maintenance, from the steering quadrant, to the engines and alternators, to the watermaker and the meticulous electric panel.

“The interior is what really struck me as being really, really well done,” Dave Powlison says. “It fits into the luxury category, with the beautiful wood laminate and all the high-quality systems. The hull lines too were perfectly clean without any bump-outs [for the steps down into the hulls], and that also makes it a lot quieter.”

Allen agrees: “The whole boat is really clean, everywhere I looked. And I thought, for the boat we saw, it would be a lot more than $1.3 million. It hits its stated purpose, and for me, the value is what put this one to top of my list. The balance that [Berman] talks about—good sailing and good livability—definitely makes this one a winner.”

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At 5 O’clock sharp on Monday, October 18, the pit crews of the U.S. Sailboat Show in Annapolis, Maryland, pulled the pins after a week of packed docks, yacht hustling, parties and Pusser’s Painkillers, marking the end of deep dock-side technical briefs of the 14 nominees in Sailing World’s 2021 Boat of the Year competition. All that’s left now is the real sailing, which will take place on Chesapeake Bay over the next four days.

Sailing World’s entry list spans from the diminutive rotomolded Topper Fusion dinghy to the big and high-tech 54-foot Kinetic catamaran. In the day sailor group, the judges will have the J/9 from J Boats and the Tartan 245. This year’s offerings in the dinghy category also include the Rocket from Fulcrum Speedworks, the Melges 15, and the intriguing inflatable catamaran appropriately called the Happy Cat.

The bulk of the Boat of the Year fleet falls into the cruiser/racer category and includes the Salona 46, the Elan GT6, Dufour 470 and Grand Soleil 44, as well as the clever Beneteau First 27. Recognizing the growing popularity of big-catamaran racing, the judges will be testing both the Kinetic and the Balance 482 performance cats, both sophisticated million-dollar builds from South Africa. Rounding out the BOTY fleet is the Dehler 30 One-Design, which was launched in 2020 but was unable to be tested due to the program’s Covid postponement last Fall.

The judging team—professional sailor Chuck Allen, naval architect Greg Stewart and longtime Sailing World contributor Dave Powlison—will sail the boats from Tuesday morning through Friday, with their Boat of the Year to be announced in December.

Follow Sailing World’s Facebook and Instagram channels for live updates and test footage.

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