Du Toit Yacht Design in the Balance Catamarans Cape Town partnership

Du Toit Yacht Design is pleased to be part of the partnership that is Balance Catamarans Cape Town – a joint venture between Balance Catamarans, Du Toit Yacht Design and Two Oceans Marine Manufacturing.

The joint venture involves a new range of Balance custom and semi-production catamarans built at the Two Oceans Marine Manufacturing Cape Town facility. Balance Catamarans already has a joint venture with Du Toit and Nexus Yachts in St Francis Bay; this new joint venture with Du Toit Yacht Design and Two Oceans Marine Manufacturing faclitates bigger catamarans, although talks are afoot to also design a 48 foot Balance to be produced in Cape Town.

“Balance Catamarans is really just a chance for us to merge all of our talents together,” Phil Berman, President of Balance Catamarans, told SABBEX during his most recent visit to Cape Town late last year. “I’ve got a keen sense of understanding of the current market and the sorts of features and designs we need to create competitive products; Anton has the design and engineering team to work with closely with me on it; and Mark and his team have the building skills to craft these very high end, performance oriented epoxy catamarans. We all know each other pretty well and work together very easily, and there is a lot of mutual respect. We also share the customer focused ethic that has driven Balance Catamarans to such great success so quickly,” Berman said.

Berman said the latest venture was motivated by market appetite for large catamarans that sailed at a far higher clip than the production yards produce, and for consumers looking for that balance between luxury and performance. With Nexus already backed up with orders for the Balance 526 – and its bigger sister the Balance 620 – Berman is looking to leverage Cape Town’s building skills to bring a slightly larger boat to market. He explained: ““Here (in Cape Town) you have a lot of really skilled people who have been doing this for a long time. As I am here regularly to work with the team, it enables me to focus with Anton and Mark on all of the fine details of design and build which collectively amount to a superior product. The devil really is in the details in catamaran design and fabrication.”

Balance Catamarans Cape Town would look to build on South Africa’s growing reputation for robust hulls and sailors unafraid of testy weather, Berman said. “One of the things about a South African builder and designer is that you are down here at the bottom of Africa with two big Oceans (actually three if you include the Southern Ocean) and a massive current. If you venture offshore you better know what you are doing — you need to build boats that are really robust.”

It’s not the first time Balance Catamarans has teamed up with Two Oceans Marine and Du Toit Yacht Design. A few years back they collaborated to produce a 150 passenger double-decker day charter catamaran, the Balance 690 Day Charter Sailing Catamaran, at very short notice. 

Watch this Boating South Africa video that explains the merger: