Home / Journal / Antares 46 Performance

Performance · Antares 46

Built for the miles world cruisers actually sail.

The Antares 46 was shaped around reaching and broad-reaching: the working angles of trade-wind passages, island-to-island cruising and long days under sail.

By Mark Silverstein 10-minute read Interactive polar Updated September 4, 2026

Explore the polar Back to Journal

A world-cruising platform first. The performance brief follows the same purpose.

Captain's Summary

The useful part of the curve is where the route takes you.

The Antares 46 was designed for world cruising, with useful speed across a broad range of sailing angles.
Reaching and broad-reaching matter most because passagemakers spend long stretches of a route at those angles.
At 12 knots true wind, the designer VPP predicts 9.50 knots at 90° and 8.84 knots at 120°.
At 20 knots true wind, it predicts 15.71 knots at 100° and 14.38 knots at 120°.
Each comparison line includes its source and configuration so buyers can see where the numbers came from.
A polar is a target. Sea state, loading, sail choices and crew rhythm decide the speed used offshore.

Design begins with the route

A world-cruising boat should be judged where its owners spend their miles.

Ocean passagemakers work with seasons and prevailing wind. That puts long stretches of a circumnavigation on a reach, a broad reach or deeper downwind. The boat settles into a rhythm. The crew stands watches, cooks, sleeps, makes water and keeps moving.

That is the sailing life the Antares 46 was designed around. Upwind ability remains part of the envelope, but the boat puts useful speed at the angles that carry owners across oceans and between cruising grounds.

The best number is not the boat's speed at its most flattering angle. It is the speed a crew can use hour after hour, with the boat loaded and the next watch coming up.

An intentional curve

The polar shape matters more for passage making.

Look across the Antares curve from 70° through 135°. At 12 knots true wind, the curve stays near nine knots from 70° through 120°. At 20 knots, predicted speed remains above 12 knots from 80° through 135°.

Those are design predictions, not passage promises. They show useful speed across the angles a cruising route is likely to use, rather than one flattering test point.

Why show the competition

Buyers should be able to compare.

Turn on Balance 464, HH44, Seawind 1370 and Vision 444-11 below. Then move the wind angle into the part of the route you care about.

The lines are not a universal race result. One comes from a numeric VPP, another from a manufacturer graphic, and each uses different loading, sails and appendages. Check those details before comparing speeds.

Interactive polar

Now put your route on the curve.

Start between 70° and 135°. Change the wind, move the angle and add the boats you want to compare. The Antares curve uses the designer’s current performance data.

True wind speed

True wind angle 90°

Reference overlays

Balance 464 HH44 Seawind 1370 Vision 444

Different sources and test assumptions. Open the source notes before drawing conclusions.

Antares target — kt Interpolated from the supplied table

True wind 12 kt at 90°

Sail-set region Reaching inventory

Passage planning

A passage is sailed by a crew, not a spreadsheet.

Start with the Antares target, then reduce it for the sea state, load, weather and sail changes that shape an actual day offshore.

The VPP sets the target. The crew chooses the pace.

Passage distance nm Planning efficiency 75%

Current polar setting 12 kt true wind · 90° TWA

Planning speed— kt

Estimated time—

Estimated nautical miles per day— nm

This is a constant-speed illustration, not a routing forecast. It excludes stops, current and motoring strategy.

Sail-plan view

The VPP uses three sail combinations.

The designer VPP uses mainsail and genoa upwind, mainsail and Code 0 reaching, and mainsail with an asymmetric downwind.

52–60° TWA

Upwind

Mainsail and genoa across every modeled wind speed.

70–100° TWA

Reaching crossover

Mainsail and Code 0 through most of the range. At higher wind speeds, the VPP transitions earlier to the upwind or downwind set.

110–180° TWA

Downwind

Mainsail and asymmetric across every modeled wind speed.

What the chart leaves out

The sea still gets the final vote.

Loading. Water, fuel, ground tackle, tools and cruising gear affect performance.
Sea state. Waves can change both speed and the angle a crew chooses to sail.
Sail condition. Shape, reefing and trim matter.
Crew choices. Comfort, visibility and fatigue influence when sail is added or reduced.
Weather and current. A static polar is not a weather-routing model.
Source method. Numeric VPP tables and digitized graphics do not carry the same precision.

Sources and assumptions

Know what each line is based on.

Open a card to see the source, boat configuration, available wind range and how the values were prepared for the chart.

01 Antares 46Designer numeric VPP

Source: a.bottino design + engineering · P71 VPP
Configuration: Antares 46 design prediction · cruising sail plan · wind measured at 10 m
Coverage: 6–20 kt TWS · 52–180° TWA
Chart values: Supplied numeric table · September 2026. Values between published rows or angles are interpolated in the explorer.

Mainsail + Genoa upwind · Mainsail + Code 0 reaching · Mainsail + Asymmetric downwind

02 Balance 464Digitized first-party graphic

Source: Wolfson Unit polar published by Balance Catamarans
Configuration: Balance 464 · published builder graphic · daggerboards
Coverage: 6–20 kt TWS shown here · digitized graphic points
Chart values: Public source graphic. Values between published rows or angles are interpolated in the explorer.

Sail inventory and VPP assumptions differ from the Antares source.

Open source

03 HH44Archived professional VPP

Source: KND Marine 6-DOF VPP · HH Performance Presentation · May 2022
Configuration: 12,500 kg · daggerboards · smaller performance-oriented benchmark
Coverage: 6–20 kt TWS shown here · 45–150° TWA
Chart values: Source document not reproduced. Values between published rows or angles are interpolated in the explorer.

Optimized sail trim, heel, daggerboard extension and rudder angle in ideal flat-water conditions.

04 Seawind 1370Digitized validated chart

Source: Validated Seawind 1370 polar chart
Configuration: Chart source describes an unladen base-boat reference; embedded configuration metadata is limited
Coverage: 5/10/15/20/25 kt TWS · 55–170° digitized here
Chart values: Chart validated; attribution details limited. Values between published rows or angles are interpolated in the explorer.

Rounded to 0.1 kt to reflect the precision of the source graphic.

05 Vision 444 · Hull 11Factory-derived owner routing polar

Source: Vision 444-11 Boat Polars · On A New Tack
Configuration: Owner-published routing table; owner states values came from Vision before owner tuning
Coverage: 4–20 kt TWS · selected 45–179° points
Chart values: Public owner source. Values between published rows or angles are interpolated in the explorer.

Owner lists main, jib, Code 55, Code 65, gennaker and Oxley Levante inventory.

Open source

View selected Antares 46 source-table values

TWA	6 kt TWS	12 kt TWS	20 kt TWS
52°	3.57 kt	6.16 kt	8.53 kt
60°	4.11 kt	7.04 kt	10.07 kt
90°	5.69 kt	9.50 kt	15.32 kt
120°	5.12 kt	8.84 kt	14.38 kt
150°	3.81 kt	6.96 kt	10.61 kt
180°	2.94 kt	5.61 kt	8.69 kt

FAQ

Planning questions, answered.

Is a polar a guarantee of boat speed?

No. A polar is a performance prediction for defined assumptions. Sea state, loading, sail condition, trim, crew choices, current and weather all change the number you will see offshore.

Why include other catamarans?

The overlays add context. They do not create a universal ranking because the underlying sources use different loading, sails, appendages and calculation methods.

Was the Antares 46 designed primarily for upwind performance?

Upwind ability remains part of the sailing envelope. The Antares 46 performance brief centers the reaching and broad-reaching angles that matter most to world-cruising routes.

Why is the HH44 included?

It is a smaller, performance-oriented reference with a professional numeric VPP. This comparison uses the 12,500 kg daggerboard configuration, the published case closest to the Antares loading used here.

Why don’t Antares cruising catamarans use daggerboards?

Antares uses fixed keels because the design brief favors dependable world cruising over optimizing the last few degrees of upwind performance. Fixed keels need no lifting controls or interior daggerboard trunks, provide a measure of grounding protection and leave owners with fewer moving parts to operate and maintain. Daggerboards can improve pointing and speed, but their added operation, space and upkeep do not fit the Antares cruising brief.

Why does the passage estimate use an efficiency setting?

Navigators use planning percentages to account for weather variability, imperfect angles, sail changes, traffic, comfort decisions and time spent away from target speed.

What should I compare before choosing a sail plan?

Start with your typical crew, loading, routes and tolerance for sail handling. Then review the exact crossover assumptions with Antares before treating a polar target as an operating plan.

Next step

Start with the route you want to sail.

Tell us where you plan to cruise, how you expect to load the boat and which sails your normal crew wants to handle.

Explore the Antares 46 Request pricing & brochure