Echo Yachts launches Australia’s largest catamaran
The 56m catamaran Charley 2, delivered by Echo Yachts in 2023.
Australian custom superyacht builder Echo Yachts has launched its latest newbuild superyacht, the 56m adventure and support catamaran M/Y Charley 2.
At 56m LOA and 1,041GT volume, the aluminium-hulled Charley 2 is understood to be the largest catamaran motoryacht ever built in Australia, and is the second-largest Echo Yachts superyacht built at the Echo Marine Group shipyard near Fremantle in Western Australia.
Charley 2 is a significantly larger variant of its predecessor M/Y Charley (composite hulled, 50m LOA, 701GT volume, delivered in 2017).
Naval architecture for Charley 2 was penned by Australian firm One2Three Naval Architects, with engineering, electrical and fitout design from the in-house team at Echo Marine Group.
Echo says Charley 2‘s larger layout provides spacious interior accommodation, outdoor entertaining areas and significant water-toy carrying capacity.
The yard adds that the Charley 2‘s aluminium hull is custom-designed to improve hydrodynamic efficiency and enable the use of much smaller engines to propel what is a significantly larger yacht compared to its predecessor M/Y Charley.
Charley 2 has a 12m custom-built catamaran tender on a launch and retrieval platform at the stern of the vessel. The yacht is also equipped with a large helicopter pad, dive store, decompression chamber and specialist sonar equipment on the 12m tender for wreck finding and diving adventures.
The design and construction of Charley 2 was completed in under three years, with the project kicking off in 2020.
“[It’s] a very special day for the teams at Echo Yachts and One2Three Naval Architects seeing the fruits of our combined efforts in the launch of Charley 2,” says Mark Stothard, director of Echo Marine Group. “She sits perfectly on the design waterline and is one of the most complete vessels I have seen at launch. A few weeks of commissioning and trials, and then she will be off on her first adventure.”
Sea trials are to commence at the beginning of September 2023, with delivery several weeks later.
All images courtesy of Echo Yachts.
