Balance Catamaran, Why We're Obsessed
If you’ve been following our recent blog journey, and I hope you have, you’re probably aware that a Catamaran may be in our future. Obviously this is entirely dependent on you guys either making us go viral, or becoming a Patreon, but I still plan on this being a reality. I’m sure you’re asking yourself, but why a Catamaran Nick and Jake? Why follow in the footsteps of seemingly every other youtube channel? And gentle reader, I’ll tell you why, comfort. Though this is a topic of contention, we want comfort. Comfort of travel and comfort of space. I won’t argue all the points on that, because there is no winning either way. With this rant coming to its end, we are currently obsessed, and I mean OBSESSED with a specific Catamaran right now, and that is the Balance Catamaran. Cue air horns and party music, because we are about to tell you why gentle readers.
Nick does what Nick does, which is boating 24/7. If he’s not editing videos about boating, he’s working on the boat, and if he’s not doing that, he’s dreaming about boating. In one of his many dream days, he stumbled across the Balance Catamaran videos on YouTube. Click here to go to their channel and enjoy, it’s definitely worth it! But, the initial draw to the boat was their complete transparency about their build practices. Here they are in a video, showing you how they build these beautiful, beautiful boats. Many yacht companies have documented via timelapse famous boats that are being built, like Outremer when they created La Vagabonde. But, it was a single timelapse that encompassed the entire build. Whereas Balance is creating multiple videos to show the build process of several different models, including how they overcome certain obstacles during that process. Um, it’s genius. Not only is it like the best marketing practice of the modern age, but for all the boat building geeks out there, it’s the perfect thing to drag you in and keep you there. Hence the current obsession. Seriously guys, check out those videos!
Okay, now for the dreaded paragraph that I hope doesn’t make you all hate little old gay me, Jake, cocaptain of Ixion. Performance versus Liveaboard Catamarans, that’s the topic of this paragraph. It, just like monohull versus Catamaran, is a much talked about subject. People will argue performance over comfort over liveability until the cows come home, and then still argue about which is best. If the name of the company is any indication, they’ve tried to Balance between those differences. With a performance Cat, you get speed. You get all the fancy and fun sailing things you want as you zip across the water. With a “Charter” style Cat, you get all the comfort modern boat making can afford you. You get beds, socialization space, etc etc. Balance has tried to combine the two to make for the best performance liveaboard combo possible. The berths, unlike a traditional Cat, aren’t in the hulls. They are on the bridge deck and face port and starboard instead of forward or aft. This has allowed the hulls to be tapered slimmer more like a performance cat, allowing it to cut through the water much better. But, unlike other performance Cats, the berths are queen sized berths, more similar to a charter Cat. Um, hello balance and happiness. Look, we are not experts on this topic, don’t burn us at the stake. But, from our point of view, this looks awesome and definitely warrants the attention. Plus, this strikes the balance between Nick and myself. Where he is a sailor through and through, and loves his performance, and I get all the creature comforts that come from a gorgeously designed liveaboard space. It’s a win win, and we just need them to fly us out to South Africa to tour the facility.
Where I think they truly take the cake though is in their ingenuity. While they may not have reinvented the wheel, they have definitely found clever uses for it. The reason I believe this to be true is because of their infancy. Balance Catamaran is a newer company compared to many others who have existed in the market for years if not decades. Hello, Beneteau has been around since the Jurassic Period when they put out their first Oceanus sailboat. They are the number one in the world for production boats for a reason. But, with that comes recognition and expectation. There are certain design expectations and styles that are expected of them. They have strayed outside of that with styles such as the Sense, but it didn’t stick around for long. I could be wrong, but perhaps because it was different from what they were known for. Balance Catamaran on the other hand is still growing and new to the industry. So they can take all the innovation of the modern world and incorporate it into their designs. They can be new and unique and different because no one expects anything from them at this moment in time. That obviously will change in time as they create their style and expectations, but until the time comes, they can just keep doing all the fun and crazy things. Which is something I truly enjoy. The new upstarts in any artistic industry always get to take what their forebears did before them, and play with it and make it new and exciting. Established artists don’t always have that luxury. I’m excited to see where Balance takes us in the next few years.
We may not be able to afford a Catamaran at this time, but we will in the future. *Cough become a Patreon cough* With a wonderful and transparent marketing tool in their videos, and their ingenuity with a balanced design, Balance will be at the top of our list of places to check out before we purchase that Catamaran in the future. They have their whole future ahead of them and I’m excited to see what they do with it. Perhaps, I’ll see them at the boat shows this year and truly get to fall in love with what they do! Until then, I’ll just continue to gaze at their beautiful boats longingly hoping to one day put a ring on it, metaphorically speaking of course.