A few weeks ago I started getting emails — from customers, from other people in the sailing community — telling me that a French builder had announced something rather familiar in one of the European sailing magazines.
It was a new helm station on one of their catamarans. They called it something different, but the resemblance to our VersaHelm was hard to miss.
I’m not going to name the builder. I don’t need to, and I don’t think it matters. What matters is what the moment says about innovation in the catamaran industry, what we’re trying to do at Balance, and why competition — even competition that occasionally borrows your ideas — is ultimately a good thing for sailors.
How We Got Here
When I started Balance, the brief I set for myself was simple in concept and difficult in execution: build catamarans my wife and I could sail together, that I could single-hand if I needed to, that performed well, and that removed as many of the frustrations I’d seen owners deal with over the years as we possibly could.
I’ve been sailing catamarans since I was 13. I’m 64 now. Through my brokerage, the Multihull Company, we’ve sold over 900 catamarans. That means I’ve spent three decades sea-trialling, surveying, and selling Lagoons, Fountaine Pajots, Catanas, Leopards — every major catamaran built in the modern era. And at the end of every sale, I’ve had the privilege of asking owners the same two questions: what do you love about your boat, and what frustrates you?
The VersaHelm was the product of those frustrations.
What People Get Wrong About the VersaHelm
Some sailors have looked at the announcement from the French builder and said, reasonably, “Well, pivoting helms aren’t new.” That’s true. Monohulls have had pivoting helms for years. The Lagoon 62 has a helm that pivots a few degrees on its flybridge boats. The Alibi 54 — built in Thailand some years ago by a company that’s no longer in business — had a helm that canted to the side deck for a sporty feel.
None of those are what the VersaHelm is.
The VersaHelm wasn’t designed to be a pivoting helm. It was designed to do three specific things that conventional catamaran helm stations don’t do well.
One: give the sailor an up helm position with every sail control line led to the same place — main halyard, reefing lines, mainsheet, jib sheet. So a single-hander can steer, reef, and trim from one position. This is the single bulkhead philosophy applied properly.
Two: from that up position, give the helmsman four-corner visibility. You can see both bows when anchoring or docking. You can see the stern when reversing into a slip — and on a catamaran, you should always be docking stern-first. The roof slides open wide enough to look aft directly.
Three: give the helmsman a down position with full sightlines through the saloon and out the bow. This is the part most people don’t appreciate until they’re in heavy weather. When it’s cold, foggy, or pouring rain — Pacific Northwest, North Atlantic in shoulder season, Maine in October — you sail from down below. Throttle in front of you. Wheel in front of you. Chart plotter at your fingertips. Visibility straight ahead through the saloon windows. Warm. Dry. Watching for crab pots or other vessels.
The sightlines are the hardest part. Most catamaran saloons have mullions and structural elements that create blind spots forward. We spent a long time with our designer Anton du Toit doing sightline studies, working out exactly where every roof support, every window frame, every fitting had to go to eliminate them. Anton’s team did the drawings. Jonathan Paarman in St Francis did full-scale mockups on the factory floor. We sat in them, we steered them, we adjusted them. We did this for a long time before the first VersaHelm went into a finished boat.
It’s not the pivot that makes it work. It’s the geometry.
The VersaHelm Watch Position
There’s one more thing the VersaHelm does that nothing else does. At the down station, you can stand a comfortable watch — sitting at the wheel, chart plotter in front, the saloon couch right beside you. The off-watch person sleeps on the couch. The on-watch person can adjust course without leaving the seat.
My wife and I have done this on overnight passages. One of us at the down helm, the other on the couch, three feet apart, both protected from weather. When you swap shifts, you swap chairs. It works.
That’s not a feature you discover on a sea trial. It’s a feature you discover at 0300 on the third night out.
Credit Where It's Due
I want to be clear about something: I had the idea, but I didn’t make the VersaHelm. Anton du Toit did the engineering and sightline work. Jonathan Paarman did the mockups, the fitting, the relentless iteration. Without them, it would have been a sketch in a notebook.
Boat building is a team effort. You can have great design and mediocre build, and the result is a frustrating boat. You can have great build and weak design, and the result is a boat people don’t love sailing. The goal is both. And both requires people who care.
On Being Copied
The French builder’s announcement isn’t bad news. It’s a confirmation that we did something worth copying.
It also confirms something I’ve believed for a while: when buyers see a better way to do something, they ask for it. The pressure on the rest of the industry to adopt better ideas comes from customers, not from manufacturers being charitable. Catamaran owners have started asking, “Why doesn’t my boat have a helm I can sail from down below?” — and the answer “because we’ve always done it this way” doesn’t survive that question.
We benefit from this dynamic too. There are plenty of things on a Balance that were inspired by other builders. The A-frame mainsheet system, which I’ll write about separately, came from Christophe Giraud and the Catana team — we use it gratefully, and we credit him for it. When we didn’t need to reinvent the wheel, we didn’t. When we did, we did.
What Comes Next for Balance Innovation
Right now we’re working closely with Integrel on the next generation of 48V lithium and integrated charging systems. Many builders are starting to follow us in adopting this technology, and we welcome it. The more catamarans that ship with cleaner, simpler, more efficient electrical architecture, the better for everyone.
You’ll see other innovations from us in the months ahead. Some you’ll notice immediately. Some are subtleties — fittings, layouts, sightlines, fabric choices — that you only appreciate after a season of ownership. Design, in the end, is hundreds of small decisions that add up.
We’ll keep making those decisions. If others copy them, we’ll take it as the compliment it is.
In the meantime — stay safe, stay healthy, and stay in balance.
