Most sailors take months or more to learn a new boat since, truth is, most of us have limited or sporadic time to devote to our education. David and Alison Lennarz, on the other hand, fast-tracked their learning when they took delivery of their new Balance 526 in St. Francis, South Africa, and made a 6,500-nautical-mile, midsummer transatlantic to Grenada as their shakedown passage.
It was an eye-opening voyage on many levels for the couple, both lifelong sailors whose previous boats had included a Melonseed skiff, a Pearson 33, and, most recently, a 26-foot Herreshoff Alerion, which they still sail in the Chesapeake Bay. Making 20 knots under a scrap of storm jib in the Atlantic, essentially surfing on a 52-foot surfboard, was a helluva long way from weekend trips with the kids out of Fishing Bay Yacht Club in Deltaville, Virginia, or even chartering a multihull to try them on for size in the Caribbean.
“It was 28 sailing days, and we were gone almost exactly two