In my testing, only qemu-system-ppc version 1:2.6.1+dfsg-0ubuntu5.2 available in yakkety and the template to set -cpu POWER8NVL was needed to resolve the issue. No kernel patches were necessary.
In my testing, only qemu-system-ppc version 1:2.6.1+ dfsg-0ubuntu5. 2 available in yakkety and the template to set -cpu POWER8NVL was needed to resolve the issue. No kernel patches were necessary.