Balance Catamarans is a fast-growing brand of comfortable ocean cruising cats, built to a strict ethos, that sail remarkably well. Here’s how they achieve that elusive balance…

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

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

Norhi’s win may have surprised some sailors in Europe, but not in the US where Balance Catamarans has won major 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 the first to notice a gap in the market.

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

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 highperformance 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.

With 40 hulls on order since its 2022 debut the Balance 442 is a remarkable success

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 first two Balance 580s, built in St Francis, are due to be launched in 2024

‘Jon Paarman and I were surfers first, sailors second,’ Berman says. ‘Beach rats. We were drawn to Hobie Cats and the Hobie lifestyle because Hobie designed them to both sail and surf. Paarman and I did not learn to sail at a yacht club, we were self-taught like so many of those who bought Hobie Cats. Hobie Cat regattas took place off beaches. It was an unpretentious, casual, fun, laid back egalitarian lifestyle. Hobie cats did not have to be manicured like most racing boats. They were durable, tough, and could handle the abuse of hard sailing and surfing. Paarman was living the Hobie lifestyle in South Africa while I was living it in Southern California. We lived a world away from each other but danced to the same Hobie beat.’

Before they discovered those strands of common heritage, it was the quality of the Paarmans’ first boat, exhibited at Annapolis Boat Show, that sparked Berman’s interest. ‘I knew I had to design a catamaran from the ground up, with a trusted design partner, and to have it built by serious sailor/builders with deep roots in composite catamaran fabrication,’ he explains. ‘When I met them and saw the craftsmanship of the first boat they built I knew instantly we would be a good fit for each other. And Anton Du Toit and I hit it off together immediately. He was a listener and a collaborator.’

Balance Cats’ key concepts

Phillip Berman and Anton du Toit explain the principles that define the brand

First sailing must be made as easy as possible. Far too many performance oriented cats are overly complicated, just to achieve marginal performance gains. Keep it simple is a driving mantra for us.

Second, a yacht must be designed and crafted to sail in the worst weather and to offer superb protection at the helm no matter how rainy or cold it may be – or how hot and sunny. Sight lines from helm stations should offer 360-degree visibility.

The Balance 482 has achieved 27 knots under sail yet its interior looks and feels like a luxury yacht

Third, sailing must be as comfortable as possible, under way or at anchor. A cruising yacht must sail well on all points of sail and offer the smoothest possible ride in a wide range of sea states. A well designed cat must also have superb bedrooms, galley, heads and showers, and carry a considerable amount of cabinetry to cleanly stow clothing and the many things we carry on a live-aboard boat.

Finally, a well-built catamaran is a thing of beauty. There’s nothing more frustrating than to own a yacht of poor quality. A lower price is quickly forgotten as you suffer the stings of shoddy craftsmanship.

We use wave piercing bows with hulls that widen aft and flare up considerably from the waterline. Our cats are beamier than most to allow larger sailplans. They have good bridgedeck clearance without undue freeboard which adds windage and poorer performance to windward.

Our designs’ performance at medium and higher speeds has been meticulously optimised through careful allocation of volume in the hulls. The rocker is adjusted and shaped for optimal interaction and handling across various sea states. These enhancements allow the boat to sail with minimal disturbance and turbulence, giving a smooth and efficient sailing experience.

Using our optimised foil sections and planforms, our high-aspect rudders and daggerboards offer exceptional sailing performance in upwind conditions. When running downwind and surfing in brisk conditions with the boards raised three-quarters they steer and track superbly.

All Balance Catamarans share a strong, distinctive DNA that stems from Berman’s concepts and draws on the experience of Du Toit, Jonathan Paarman and others. ‘Most critically we involve the build teams to discuss the design and how it impacts the actual tooling and fabrication process,’ Berman says, ‘because it is one thing to have a pretty boat on paper, quite another to build it well and in the most cost effective fashion.’

On the water, Balance Catamarans achieve the elusive combination of excellent performance in a broad range of wind and sea conditions, on most points of sail, with good payload-carrying ability. Upwind VMG is a particular strength, thanks to two main factors. Deep daggerboards allow these boats to point at least seven degrees higher than most other cats while maintaining good boatspeed, and careful weight distribution reduces fore-and-aft pitching to a minimum.

Another factor in the brand’s success is a game-changing innovation: the VersaHelm. ‘We were the first to offer this 90-degree pivoting helm station,’ Berman explains. ‘It enables our customers to sail up top in fair weather, with four corners sight lines of both bows and sterns, and offers the same four corners visibility, along with total weather protection, when sailing down below. It was a Balance innovation that arose from our desire to make sailing more comfortable in any sort of weather and to make short-handed sailing easier all around.’

Strong demand has led to rapid expansion in the last few years and, according to Berman, Balance has been the fastest growing catamaran brand in the world. The St Francis yard builds three key models in the range: the 526, 580 and 620. These are highly bespoke, hand built by master craftsmen at a rate of seven boats per year.

The Balance 526 got the brand rolling in 2014 and they haven’t looked back

The Paarmans are content with the scale of their operation, which wouldn’t have been easy to expand in St Francis, so to grow the brand Berman licensed the creation of a new company, Balance Catamarans Cape Town, with local shipyard owner Mark Delany as director. ‘He not only had great catamaran building skills, but the ability to build the additional 20 boats a year we required,’ Berman says. ‘To bring the price of the 442 and 482 into reach for more consumers we tooled them to be crafted more quickly, in larger volumes with less customisation, and Mark retrofitted a massive factory space in Cape Town port to fabricate them.’

Despite the obvious differences between the Cape Town and St Francis yards, the boats’ construction and build quality are broadly similar. ‘Every Balance catamaran is foam cored, carbon reinforced and vacuum bagged,’ Berman explains. ‘Many of our parts are infused, all our doors are custom made with carbon, all bulkheads are composite and hand laminated to the hulls, every yacht is spray finished and all of our cabinetry is custom-made with real wood veneers in foam core panels. The number of labour hours that go into a Balance catamaran far exceeds nearly all catamarans built in Europe.’ Across the entire fleet, the standard-spec boats are lighter in displacement than most other brands and owners have a wide range of options to achieve further weight reductions by increasing the amount of carbon fibre in their boat’s construction.

Composite engineer Jeff Fish (left) and build director Jonathan Parman discuss a Balance 580 detail

Delany’s core management team in Cape Town has a depth of experience to match the Paarmans’, including secondgeneration multihull boatbuilders like Peter Dean from Dean Catamarans, who brings large-scale procurement expertise and heads up customer liaison, and Mark Wehrly from Matrix Yachts, whose experience from large, high-performance custom cat projects like Zingara and Akasha is now focused on delivering additional weight savings and build quality refinements in the Cape Town operation. Major improvements in smallpart mouldings have been achieved, with the weight of air conditioning ducts reduced from 12kg to 2kg, for example, and sliding cabin doors from 17kg to 8kg.

So what’s next for Balance Catamarans? Alongside the recently scaled-up production of the two smaller models, the big news from Cape Town is that a spectacular, fully bespoke new flagship – the Balance 750, whose features include a flybridge and a forward cockpit – is now also in build.

Click here for more information on Balance Catamarans »

Southern Wind Shipyard has been developing and evolving its own innovative construction techniques over the last 20 years, with 42 boats built (and counting) since the turn of the millennium…

What happens when the forensically detailed weight study for a grand prix racing yacht is scaled up and applied with equal rigour to a 100ft superyacht? You get a spreadsheet with more than 900 rows and 140 columns, with about 2,700 cells of live data that update in real time as the boat is designed, engineered and built, fitted out and rigged. Most superyacht builders don’t actually go to that level of detail in weight calculations, but at Southern Wind Shipyard they do.

In the last 20 years, Southern Wind has built many more composite sailing yachts in the 100ft (30m) size bracket than anyone else. With 42 boats launched since the turn of the millennium, all between 27m and 35m LOA, and every small detail from each of these projects meticulously logged, it all adds up to a vast quantity of data and a huge amount of boatbuilding experience.

‘We probably have the biggest library of weight calculations in our segment of the industry,’ says Marco Alberti, CEO of Southern Wind. If I select the SW96 Nyumba, for example and type in “galley basin”, it tells me the weight, the model, the location coordinates and the moment it generates longitudinally, transversally and vertically.’

‘An equivalent weight record for a raceboat won’t have anywhere near as much data because it has far fewer components,’ Alberti explains. ‘For us every tap, every battery, every drawer handle has to be recorded. And unlike a racing yacht build we also need to consider different loading scenarios. Trim has to be calculated at full sailing displacement and half load displacement as well as light ship displacement.’

The upshot is that despite the immense complexity of a Southern Wind yacht, the difference between its design weight and its actual displacement is around one per cent. And the huge library of weight calculations, from so many boats in the same size range, allows their design office to be very accurate in its estimates for future builds.

That’s just one of many reasons why Southern Wind has earned its first class reputation as a yacht builder. Another key factor is the exceptional quality of its composite construction.

Above and below: the carbon subfloor frames are fabricated in house

Over the last two decades the Southern Wind lamination team, led by composite maestro Stefan Falcon, has developed and gradually refined an exclusive technique for epoxy infusion to produce a laminate with far better technical properties than any other infusion method. Some of the details are trade secrets, but in essence it’s a three-shot process where the outer skin of the hull is vacuum-infused into a female mould and fully cured, then the core is bonded to it with structural epoxy adhesive (which is lighter than infusion resin). Finally, after the core bond is cured, the hull’s inner skin is infused on top.

Foam core for infusion is usually supplied as sheets with pre-cut slits, which make it easier to bend the material around the contours of a hull and also help to distribute the resin during the infusion process. ‘However, this adds hundreds of grams per square metre of extra resin,’ Falcon says, ‘and in the long term the grooves can increase the risk of print through when the hull is exposed to sunlight. To avoid these issues we have developed a technique that uses plain foam sheets instead of the typical cut ones. The foam sheets are individually cut to shape and pre-bent to exactly match the inner surface of the hull.’

Remarkable weight savings were achieved in the build of the SW105 GT Taniwha, which is the most performancefocused of the 105 mini-series

Andrea Micheli, Southern Wind CCO, explains that the shipyard’s vacuuminfused laminate has produced results that are close, in terms of quality and performance, to the high-end prepregs used in carbon spars and grand prix raceboat hulls, which need to be stored in a freezer and cured in an autoclave.

Micheli’s figures indicate that the resin-to-fabric ratio of prepreg laminate in a raceboat hull is typically 33-34 per cent; Southern Wind’s infusion technique delivers a ratio of 36-37 per cent at a much lower cost. These figures are far better than it’s possible to achieve with normal oneshot infusion, which also carries a much greater risk of dry spots in the laminate.

The SW ‘recipe’ includes threepart female hull moulds, modular cabin construction and composite structures

Quite sensibly for a shipyard whose ocean-going yachts are designed and built to last a lifetime, Southern Wind will only use foam cores rather than Nomex honeycomb between the outer and inner skins of its hulls. The weight saving of Nomex makes sense for boats that are stored ashore between races and tend to have a short competitive life. But the higher risk of delamination – which is inherent, because honeycomb has a far smaller surface area that can bond with the laminate than a sheet of foam – is unacceptable for a cruising yacht that spends much of its life bumping against docks, quays and tenders, and then has to stand up to the stresses and shock loads of hard ocean sailing.

There are applications where the combination of honeycomb core and prepreg laminate deliver a big weight saving benefit without any compromise in durability, such as bulkheads and decks, anchor lockers and lazarettes. The risk of delamination here is much lower and honeycomb core is exceptionally strong in compression, so for highly customised builds like the Reichel/Pugh designs Allsmoke and Morgana, and the Farr Yacht designs Sorceress and Taniwha, where performance is a higher priority than sound insulation, Southern Wind offers Nomex and prepreg carbon. And where ultimate strength is required in a solid laminate – rudder stock tubes, for example – autoclave-cured prepreg carbon is always used.

The three-part female hull moulds that are now widely used in large composite yacht construction were originally another Southern Wind innovation. The mould is initially built in one piece, from chipboard and plywood – low-cost materials with a small carbon footprint – with old resin that would otherwise have to be thrown away. After fairing and checking dimensions the mould is cut into three pieces that fit back together with a more perfect alignment than a CNC-produced three-part mould. ‘It was Stefan’s idea,’ Micheli recalls. ‘He presented it to Marco Alberti and they made a mock-up to explain the concept to Willy Persico, founder of Southern Wind. That model lived in the board room for years and was used in many meetings with clients.’

Quality assurance is taken well beyond the requirements of classification. Independent surveyors from QI Composites conduct non-destructive ultrasound testing (NDT) on each boat, two or three times during its build. On a typical visit they might check the bulkheads of one boat, the outer skin of another and the inner skin and deck of a third. ‘But we also conduct our own internal NDT checks on a weekly basis so that when we have a QI Composites check, this is mostly a formality,’ says Yann Dabbadie, SW technical manager, ‘and we ask the mast maker to do the same. All of the findings are compiled into a report that forms part of the owner’s manual so the client has complete visibility. We think this level of transparency is very important but it is absolutely not standard in the industry.’

After the hull is infused in a three-shot process, the internal structures are bonded in place. Nomex is used strategically

Inside the hull, the construction innovation continues. Cabins are built as modules on the factory floor, which is a much more efficient way to do it than building inside the hull. But while other yards tend to simply hoist finished modules straight into the boat and fix them in place, at Southern Wind they are taken apart after completion and then re-assembled on board. There are several reasons for this, Dabbadie explains. The modules can be built a lot lighter because they don’t need to support their own weight while being craned into the yacht. And because they are designed for disassembly, it’s easy to access everything behind and inside them – chainplates, systems, cables, pipework, the hull itself – for maintenance and repair.

The furniture is made from paper-cored panels that are very nearly as light as Nomex (which is an alternative on highly customised builds), and half the cost. These are set in solid timber and covered with carefully grain-matched veneer which the shipyard buys in rolls, rather than pre-bonded to plywood panels, to save a bit more weight.

Southern Wind’s main focus in recent years has been ‘smart custom’ builds, which are one of its unique selling points. The smart custom approach has been developed to offer most of the key advantages of a full custom build while eliminating most of the risks. In these projects the owner has almost complete freedom of choice for the internal layout and interior design (as well as the coachroof, cockpit, deck plan, rig and more), with just the constraints of a pre-designed and engineered hull.

There’s now an alternative to smart custom builds, although those will continue to be a mainstay of the yard’s production. The latest model, the 100X, is a semi-custom build where the owner selects from a wide range of pre-set options for layout, interior design and deck plan, rather than having complete free rein. The benefit for them is a faster, more efficient and sustainable build at a lower cost. And crucially – whichever way they choose to have their boat built – Southern Wind’s signature composite construction and build quality are exactly the same.

Click here for more information on Southern Wind Shipyard »

X-Yachts announces the latest model in its Xc series of blue water cruising boats with bold claims and some new design features

Few brands in the boat industry are as respected as Denmark’s X-Yachts. It was founded 43 years ago by three passionate sailors and all through the 1980s various models built on the revolutionary Niels Jeppesen design won one world championship after another. Later, focus shifted to high-end performance cruisers, based on the Scandinavian tradition of craftsmanship. Through the years X-Yachts has become famous for attention to detail and a drive for innovation and high build quality. Reducing production cost has never been the main priority. If you ask the often very dedicated X owners, they will tell you that X-Yachts simply know how to make a boat that works. Not only in harbours, but in real offshore conditions.

It doesn’t happen every day that a new model appears from the yard in Haderslev. But right now, something is cooking. The next yacht is well under way and it’s called the Xc 47. The launch will happen at Boot in Düsseldorf in January, and will mark the beginning of a new generation of the X cruising segment. When asked to comment, CEO at X-Yachts, Kræn Brinck Nielsen, simply puts it this way: ‘It’s probably the best yacht we ever built’.

Those are big words so let’s dive into what’s behind the statement: The first Xc model was launched in 2008, marking a major shift away from X Yachts’ racing roots, towards the market for luxury cruising yachts. Since then more than 300 yachts have been built. The range has been developing through the years and is presently going through a process of reinvention.

‘The concept behind the Xc 47 is built on years of experience with the X cruising line’, says Thomas Mielec, director of design and engineering at X-Yachts, ‘but at the same time we wanted to accommodate the growing number of sailors that are looking for a true blue water cruiser. The 47 is an elegant high-performance cruiser, built for safe and comfortable ocean sailing. And it’s a yacht seriously designed to make short-handed sailing safe and easy. A lot of our customers share a dream of taking off on a long cruise – often around the world. With this yacht, they will be ready to do it whenever the opportunity arises.”

Shorthanded with ease and style
Most sailing today – even blue water cruising – happens with a small crew, usually just a couple. The development process of the new Xc 47 has had this in mind right from the beginning. The cockpit layout is designed for the helmsman to handle all lines. Four winches – two on each side – are positioned in front of the wheels. All relevant control lines are led aft from the mast foot in channels under the deck to the twin helms, with jammers that are easy for the helmsman to reach. The traveller is moved out of the cockpit, in front of the sprayhood. Apart from creating an efficient work space, this type of cockpit arrangement leaves room for a comfortable living space, with the main portion of the cockpit clear of all sail handling systems. At the aft end of the cockpit, a large aft deck provides a comfortable seat across the full width behind the wheels, as well as a nice sunbathing area. The cockpit is deep, well protected and with a closed transom.

To check the ergonomics of the new Xc47 a full scale, heeling mock-up was built

X qualities

As a boat yard defining itself as a premium brand, X-Yachts has refined and defined their DNA into a list of items called “X qualities”. Here are the most important:

Steel frame
The galvanised steel frame is the most famous signature feature in an X-yacht. It has been a core principle since 1981. The frame provides a safe, strong attachment between the keel and the hull and makes it possible to add more ballast, a key part of the inherent stability that X-Yachts are so famous for. The keel is bolted directly to the steel frame and any force working on the keel – even sudden shocks from grounding or hitting debris in the water – will be absorbed and distributed more evenly through the structure.

Stability/weight distribution
X-Yachts has always prioritised high stability by maintaining a low centre of gravity. But longitudinal weight distribution is also important in a sailing yacht. Excessive weight in the bow and stern will cause pitching and slamming. This is not only uncomfortable, but also transmits massive loads through the boat and slows it down. Moving tanks and other heavy items closer to the centre of gravity reduces inertia and increases both speed and comfort when going through waves.

Laminate quality, clear gelcoat
The strength and integrity of a composite structure relies on a complete saturation of the fibres. To make it easier to detect potential dry spots or air bubbles during production, X-Yachts applies clear gelcoat on the bottom section of every hull.

Encapsulated keel
X-Yachts’ cast iron and lead keels are encapsulated in a reinforced epoxy e-glass shell, to guarantee a fair finish. The shell ensures that every keel stays accurate and faithful to the designed, original profile, and protects the keel from corrosion.

Vacuum infused epoxy sandwich
Vacuum infusion makes it possible to control the amount and distribution of resin very precisely and produces a uniform, strong hull with an approximate 15 per cent weight reduction. Gurit Corecell M foam is used between the two layers of laminate, a sandwich material with excellent impact resistance, high strength and low resin uptake. This build process produces a very light, stiff and strong hull.

Component/material quality
The loads in an X-yacht are considerable – even more so because of the large sail plan. The strong hull and keel structure require the rigging components to be top of the line and dimensioned correctly. Only the best suppliers are used: Andersen, Harken, Reckmann and Spinlock provide reliable rig components that are easy to use and maintain, and correctly sized for the loads involved.

Centre lift
X-Yachts are designed to be lifted using a single lift point integrated in the steel frame. This means there’s no need for straps at the crane, which eliminates the risk of damage to propellers and rudders. Also, there’s no scratching of topsides or removing of freshly painted antifouling. The single lift point makes things a bit easier when hauling out or launching the boat.

Design, hull lines
X-Yachts’ design office has a more than 40-year-long track record designing yachts that are known all over the world for their efficient lines and fast hulls. They have always taken pride in doing their design work inhouse, and continue to do so today.

Ergonomics, easy handling
Behind an easy and free flowing experience of sail handling in the cockpit lies an extensive attention to detail when it comes to ergonomics and work positions. X-Yachts are well-known for easy handling, and their racing heritage means that they know where deck gear needs to sit to make things work as effortless as possible – not only for efficient high-performance sailing, but also for relaxed shorthanded cruising.

Lead keel bulbs
Lead keel bulbs have a smaller volume than iron bulbs of the same weight. The use of lead in bulbs means a 30 per cent reduction of volume. Less wetted surface means less resistance and more speed.

The aft end of the cockpit is enclosed and the transom folds down from an aft deck that serves as a helm seat

Stiffness and rig tension
On any yacht, the forestay and backstay will pull the hull upwards while the mast will push it downwards. If the hull isn’t stiff enough, the boat will flex – especially when sailing upwind in waves. This causes the forestay to lose tension momentarily every time the boat hits a wave. It’s called forestay pumping and it deforms the headsail at a critical moment.

X-Yachts’ solution is to build precisely engineered structures inside the hull that enhance its stiffness. This prevents forestay pumping and ensures that tuning adjustments of sails or rig are precisely transferred. Being able to adapt easily to changing conditions makes the boat perform well and makesit a safer and more enjoyable place to be.

‘Semi deck saloon’
The first thing most people will notice when looking at the hull lines is the shape of the superstructure. This is not something that’s been a part of X-Yachts’ visual signature in the past. ‘We have introduced what we like to call a "semi deck saloon", says Mielec. ‘This solution provides a better view of the surroundings when you are down below, with more natural light, and it creates an opportunity for multi-level floors.’

To make sure the Xc 47 is capable of carrying enough provisions for long periods of time at sea, the yacht has efficient storage volumes. Looking at the interior renderings, you can clearly see the influence of Danish design and architecture, which is famous for a clean and timeless style. X-Yachts has always been a part of this tradition but in the Xc 47, the inspiration from Nordic design is taken a step further.

The deep forefoot and fully integrated bowsprit are new Xc features and the cabin top shape is a new design

A closer look at the hull lines will reveal deep V-shaped bow sections, generous rocker and a relatively high stern overhang, all aspects well-known from the previous Xc models, proven to provide comfortable seagoing characteristics. Further aft, the Xc 47 has wider stern sections than its predecessors and a soft chine that provides extra form stability, better reaching performance and more space in the aft cabins.

The Xc47’s interior draws its inspiration from contemporary Nordic design

Full size, heeling mock-up
‘The design process this time has been different’, Mielec explains. ‘We have built a full-size model – a so called mock-up – that can be heeled up to 20 degrees. As far as I know, we are the only yard that has ever done that. This has given us a unique test platform – the opportunity to test different design scenarios in real life. Being able to move around in a physical environment made a lot of discussions unnecessary, because everyone could sense right away what the right solution would be. Not only under conditions as they are when the yacht is docked, but also how things work under sail, when the boat is heeled over. So, the end result is a boat that is really ocean proof, with an interior that works even when sailing offshore in rough conditions. It’s very easy to handle, with accessible installations and lots of light and ventilation. And because we could test it in the mock-up, we know that you get this airy feeling of walking into the boat instead of climbing down into some sort of basement. We believe that we created something really special with this yacht. It could well be the best blue water cruiser ever built.’

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For racing teams with global ambitions, Sevenstar helps to maximise the number of regattas they attend in different parts of the world

Examining what happens behind the scenes at Sevenstar’s Racing Yachts’ logistics division reveals the huge amount of work, knowledge and experience needed to reliably and safely ship raceboats of all types around the world. This is the domain of engineering and operations manager Max Stepanov, who is an operation colleague of Sander Speet, and whose skilled and experienced team includes marine engineers and naval architects. Many have worked in varied roles at Sevenstar , often starting on ships before transitioning to working ashore.

Before joining in 2016, Stepanov was a merchant navy officer for 20 years, including five as captain. His deputy, Sean Lines, is ex-Royal Navy and a former Sevenstar loadmaster – a role requiring a high level of qualification and in-house training. Marian Minoiu, an engineering project manager, is a naval architect and marine engineer with 25 years’ experience and deep understanding of all intricacies of cargo handling. Another engineering project manager, Rene Berger spent two decades as a deck and engineering officer and 15 as master mariner. He has degrees in marine operations and engineering.

The team’s extensive knowledge is put to use as soon as an enquiry is received. For instance, while Sevenstar has a stock of certified yacht cradles in strategically located warehouses around the globe, raceboats typically use their own. These can provide better support, but that’s not automatic and Stepanov says at this stage he sees cradles that don’t comply with the necessary standards on many occasions. The key problem is most cradles are intended for static loads in a boatyard, not dynamic loads from motions encountered at sea.

The first thing the Sevenstar team needs is, therefore, data about the boat and cradle. For much of this the yacht’s rating certificate may suffice, along with technical drawings and current photos of both cradle and boat. These photos help the team identify any apparent deviations from the original specification.

If the cradle is not up to scratch the in-house engineering team can send the client recommendations for modifications. With 3D structural engineering software they can quickly answer complex questions. ‘Twenty years ago, it might have taken a week to design a custom cradle,’ says Stepanov. ‘Now we can produce workshop drawings in two days.’

A further stage for Max’s team is to devise lifting and stowage plans for the deck of the ship, with the yachts positioned as efficiently as possible, while allowing space for movement when each one is lifted off its cradle. Once loaded, cradles are held in place by substantial stoppers welded to the ship’s deck – this is carried out as a custom operation for every sailing.

This focus on safety pervades all aspects of Sevenstar’s work. Briefings for loading and unloading operations start 24 hours in advance. Even at highly regulated ports that aren’t on a regular route, every part of the operation is overseen by Sevenstar’s own loadmasters, who have ultimate authority to suspend work if wind or sea state threatens safe and smooth handling.

The company also has a long-standing philosophy of continuous improvement, driven both by client feedback and through an internal process of debriefing and analysis. Head of racing yacht logistics, Sander Speet, an accomplished professional racer, says it’s a constantly evolving process, with a focus on making sure communications are ‘super clear and efficient.’

Sevenstar also has the benefit of a growing database covering every yacht shipped and any specific measures needed. This includes feedback from loadmasters, for instance on recommendations for strop length for each boat. Such attention to detail takes time and shipping is best booked as far in advance as possible. Nevertheless, when necessary, lead times can be surprisingly short. For a fully custom shipping Speet says it's usually a minimum of two weeks, but they have done rush custom jobs, typically for competitors in The Ocean Race and the Imoca 60 fleet, ‘with very, very little lead time.’

Sevenstar’s regular sailings on its own fleet of ships account for the overwhelming bulk of business and at times these can be booked as little as two days ahead, providing logistics are in place. The team’s ultimate goal is to make even the most ambitious racing schedules a reality and they therefore work closely with race teams to provide point-to-point transport that makes it possible to maximise the scope of their racing.

Click here for more information on Sevenstar Yacht Transport »