Lloyd Stevenson Boatbuilders plans to launch B79, a Catalyst Chase 45. commissioned by Team Australia, in January 2027. The boat will run trials on the Waitematā Harbour before joining Australia’s challenge for the 38th America’s Cup in Naples.
Lloyd Stevenson Boatbuilders is close to finishing its latest Catalyst Chase, and this one is going to the Australians. The East Auckland yard said B79 is nearing completion and was commissioned by Team Australia to support its challenge for the 38th America’s Cup in Naples, Italy, in 2027. Launch is scheduled for January 2027, and the builder says it’s looking forward to seeing B79 put through her paces on the Waitematā Harbour before she heads overseas.
The builder describes the boat as a purpose-built platform for coaching, safety and technical support throughout the campaign. Power comes from Mercury’s 425hp Verado outboards, the V10 model in Mercury’s range. On 9 November, Team Australia named Mercury Marine Australia an official supplier, with Verados powering the team’s chase boat fleet in Naples and its Chase 1 and Chase 2 boats renamed M1 and M2.
B79 has been taking shape since at least September, when the yard’s build update reported the hull rolled over and work under way on the sole and foredeck. Lloyd Stevenson says it incorporates refinements informed by experience with earlier boats in the series.
A Cup boat from the start
That role takes the Catalyst back to where it began. Morrelli & Melvin designed the original in 2013 as a support boat for Emirates Team New Zealand’s America’s Cup campaign, and Salthouse Boatbuilders built it as a 45ft, 1200hp tender. Lloyd Stevenson acquired the moulds in 2019, as John Eichelsheim noted in his review of the Catalyst 45 Render, and the yard has been building Catalysts since 2020. Our August report put Catalyst production at 25 boats, with almost no two alike.
Cup teams have kept coming back to the design. In 2021 the yard announced a Catalyst 45 chase boat for a challenger in the 37th America’s Cup, and by mid-2023 it had two Catalysts under construction for America’s Cup teams.
B79 isn’t the only part of the Australian campaign taking shape in Auckland. Team Australia, whose challenge from the Royal Prince Edward Yacht Club was accepted in May, bought Emirates Team New Zealand’s 2021 Cup winner Te Rehutai as part of a design package, and its conversion has involved work at Team New Zealand’s North Shore build facility.
What we’ve seen of the hull
We’ve had a good look at what this hull can do. When Andrew Howard tested a Catalyst GT for our October 2024 issue, the wind was blowing over 25 knots and the sea was building in the middle of the Gulf. From a standing start, the boat crossed 30 knots in eight seconds and reached 52 knots in 17.5 seconds. Howard found the ride exceptional and the handling “staggeringly good”, even at more than 50 knots in a metre of chop.
That boat had a very different job. The GT was commissioned for a private resort in the Caribbean as a high-speed guest transport and watersports tender, and Lloyd Stevenson’s design department gave it a new superstructure inspired by the gentlemen’s commuter boats of the 1920s and 30s.
Render showed another side of the platform. Fitted with twin 600hp Mercury Verado V12s, bolt-on foils and a modular cockpit that LSB’s Glyn Davies likened to a Lego set, she made the passage from Auckland to Fiji on her own bottom. The delivery crew averaged 28 knots to Minerva Reef, where they topped up from the mothership Kokomo.
The closest comparison
Another recent race support Catalyst is Django Shade, a 50ft boat launched in May for Giovanni Lombardi Stronati’s Django racing programme, the reigning Maxi Grand Prix champions. She reached 52 knots during her first sea trials and wears sharply angled reverse-rake windscreens that give her a commercial look. Our August follow-up reported twin 600hp Mercury V12s, a foil-assist package and a range of 900 nautical miles at 30 knots.
B79 isn’t the yard’s only Australian commission. B78, a Catalyst 45 GT, will be the first Catalyst to call Perth, Western Australia, home. It’s the second Catalyst to carry the GT-style superstructure and runs twin 600hp Mercury V12s, and in October the builder reported its cabin top had been installed. The builder reckons it will be hard to beat on the crossing between Perth and Rottnest Island.
That gives the yard two Australian Catalyst commissions, one headed for Perth and the other for the America’s Cup. B79’s next milestone is her January 2027 launch on the Waitematā.
