steve jobs sailing yacht

Here’s the First Look Inside Steve Jobs’ Crazy Last Project

S teve Jobs’ luxury yacht, Venus, was photographed recently, providing a glimpse of the interior for the first time.

Photos of 100 million euro yacht were taken by people at Woods Hole Inn in Cape Cod, Mass., Gizmodo reported Monday. The French-designed yacht debuted in 2012, one year after Jobs died, but until now there have been photos of only the exterior.

Have a look:

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Philippe Starck reveals the real story behind Steve Jobs' yacht

A blunder by a phone operator might have prevented the miracle from taking place and no one would have ever known about it. Philippe Starck still laughs at the thought. It was seven years ago, at the headquarters of his Parisian offices near the Place de la République. The employee had informed the famous French decorator that a Mr. Jobs had called. The young woman did not see who that might be—despite the fact that she probably had a Mac running in front of her and had been downloading music on her iPod for some time. Perhaps she had even seen Toy Story , the film that revolutionized animated features. Still, she had not made the connection with the founder of Apple, former owner of Pixar , the man who transformed technology into an object of desire and commerce. She had written down his name but had refused to disturb her boss. The caller, who had spoken English, hung up without leaving a number. “Can you imagine the aura of Jobs in 2007” chuckles Starck today. “He was basically God! And she doesn't put him through because she didn't know who he is! We were off to a good start.”

It was a miracle that the Californian divinity was not discouraged. “For anyone who knew Steve,” Starck adds, “he almost certainly wouldn't call back after such a humiliation.” A few weeks after this, "God" was on line again. This time, the Parisian designer was just leaving for Milan, to the annual furniture trade show, a ritual meeting place for the experts of planet design. A half-dozen motorcycle taxis awaited him, as well as members of his team, with their engines running. He barely had enough time to make the flight to Italy where a multitude of press conferences had been scheduled—being late was not an option. “I already had my helmet on when the operator caught me, breathless,” he says. “Monsieur Starck! Monsieur Starck! You know that person, that Mr. Jobs? He wants to talk to you!” I took off my helmet and heard his voice: “Would you like to make me a boat?” “Well… sure,” I replied. The two men only exchanged but a few words: “Fifteen seconds” of conversation, confirms Philippe Starck. To the American billionaire's direct question: “Will you know how?” he says he proudly replied, before blazing on to the airport, “Of course! I have palms in between my fingers and scales on my back. I am amphibian.”

The son of an engineer who designed airplanes, Starck spent a great part of his childhood admiring ships. At 15, he taught survival in the case of shipwreck at a sailing school in the bay of Morlaix, he and his brother also raced boats on the Seine. “I always had boats, whatever the size,” he told the quaterly Mer & Bateaux in 2012 . I always have one in the concept stage or the building stage. My wife and I have lived in places where we could have a boat moored in front of our house. We live on the water and for the water.” Famous for his hotel and restaurant designs all over the world —the Café Costes, the Mama Shelter hotel, the Meurice and the Royal Monceau in Paris, the Royalton in New York, the Mondrian in Los Angeles and the Fasano in Rio—Starck did not necessarily want to design yachts for anyone beside himself. In Starck Explications , a manifesto published in 2003 for the exhibition dedicated to his work at the Pompidou Center, he tells the story of a prank pulled on a client who wanted to commission him a yacht : he had advised him to first go for a swim to see whether he truly needed a boat! Later, a “gorgeous woman,” whose name he does not mention, made him a new offer (it was Hala Fares, the spouse of the businessman and Lebanese vice-premier minister Issam Fares) that he declined because he found the very idea of a yacht “structurally vulgar.” The lady, cunningly, defied him to build one that avoided vulgarity, and for her he designed Wedge Too . Six years later, in 2008, Starck conceived the A for Andrey Menichenko, the Russian oligarch. 119 meters long and weighing 6000 tons, it’s one of the greatest motor yachts ever made, and its cost was an estimated $300 million. Its aggressive form was the object of very lively criticism: in an article on January 23, 2008, the Wall Street Journal even wondered whether it wasn’t “the world’s ugliest boat.”

Moreover, Starck prides himself on helping save the Bénéteau ship yard in Vendée from bankruptcy by designing a line of sailboats for it, then conceiving a revolutionary single-rudder racer, Virtuelle , designed in 1997, for a very wealthy Italian (even though the plans are officially signed by a transalpine naval architect). According to Starck, ten years later, it was this sailboat, with its minimal lines, that Steve Jobs cited as an example to persuade him to work for him—“ Virtuelle is the most beautiful boat I’ve seen in my life,” is what he told him ( Mer & Bateaux , December 2012). Starck, who is not averse to tributes, and is prompt to quote this Rousseau sentence : “I would rather be a man of paradoxes than a man of prejudices,” took the compliment as a challenge. Jobs too had his contradictions. In 1995, after Pixar ’s successful skylight public offering, he had said he “was not planning on buying a yacht.” But Venus was not going to be just any yacht.

Par Blanche Marcel

Par Maxime Jacob

Par Kase Wickman

THE ASCETIC AND THE BON VIVANT

On April 28, 2007, Philippe Starck and his companion, Jasmine —he would marry her the following December—turned up in front of Steve Jobs residence in Palo Alto, California, in north Silicon Valley. The area seemed ordinary, the entrance gate did not look like much. A driver had taken them there after a twelve-hour flight between Paris and Los Angeles. Noting the modesty of the place, the French designer felt obliged to add : “We’re going to Steve Jobs’, you know, the head of Apple.” But the chauffeur did not turned around, it was the right address. “We got out. The gate in old ironwork was about a meter tall and there was a detail that struck me and pleased me, it closed with a plumbing jointure. I said to myself, “Wait, it might actually be here after all.” Starck opened it, crossed a “small yard,” knocked on the glass of what looked like a kitchen door. “It vibrated the way old tiles do. No one came but everything was open. Suddenly, a ghostly silhouette appeared, dressed in black. “Hi Philippe!” It was him, he kissed us. He was, straight away, extremely warm.”

It was there, in that “very humble little home in a chic and classic American suburb,” and which Philippe Starck deems was no bigger than 200 sq. meters, “that looked like 150,” that the two men came to know each other. Over the next four years, in the course of regular work sessions, a discreet and stimulating friendship united the two ingenious creative spirits, both endowed with equally oversized egos.

“He was the god of fastidiousness and I, I was the emperor of fastidiousness,” proclaims Philippe Starck quite simply. I am meeting with the designer in Paris, at one of his offices with a view on Place du Trocadéro. I had obtained the interview by dint of persistence and persuasion—after all, Jobs himself had had to call more than once. Starck is always in between two planes and ten homes (he owns properties—among other places—in Paris, Venice, Cap-Ferret.). He wants to be everywhere and nowhere, omnipresent but elusive. After all, he has called his company Ubik, borrowed from Phillip K. Dick’s masterpiece in which characters evolve in parallel universes.

Today, his company's offices and his main home are on the third floor of a majestic 1930s building with a panoramic view of the Eiffel tower and white spaces. Philippe Starck is wearing his usual outfit: jeans, sneakers and a hoodie. Jasmine is near him. A tall brunette, she too is wearing an informal uniform—black jeans and sneakers. A former publicist for the LVMH Group, she never leaves the side of her 65-year-old genius (she is 23 years younger), she monitors and records his words, intervenes, if necessary, to insert a recollection, corroborate a date, clarify a circumstance. A group of assistants finishes sweeping the room we are meeting in. “Cleaning,” in the true sense of the word, as in the figurative sense, is one of his obsessions. One day, he tells me, as he still couldn’t get over having been received by Steve Jobs in a house so wanting in luxury (in 2008, Forbes estimated the latter’s fortune to be $5.7 billion, the equivalent of more than 4 billion euros), he was emboldened to ask, “Steve, do you really live here?” “ Yes, why?” he answered. “It’s just that… everything is so clean, orderly, so tidy…" The Apple boss replied , “Oh, you want to see a mess?” and led him to his office. “There were a few newspapers scattered on the floor and two pairs of sneakers. This, for him, was the height of disorder.

As he recalls it, Steve Jobs lived in the middle of emptiness. “Not chic minimalism,” he states. “Rustic, rather. There was just nothing. A couch, three armchairs, a coffee table in the living room… Nothing.” In the biography that he devoted to the Californian inventor ( Steve Jobs , JC Lattes, 2011), Walter Isaacson also describes a man who was “so demanding with furniture” that his homes were empty. Before the one that Philippe Starck visited, he did nonetheless own a fourteen-room hacienda . For the house in Palo Alto, bought after his marriage to Laurene Powell in 1997, Jobs had to force himself to set up a minimum level of comfort—beds for a start—basic requirements for a family with three children (Reed, Erin and Eve). His character, sustained by Oriental philosophy was marked by austerity and bareness. On this point, the two men were in sync. “I’ve tried to be inspired by the Asian idea that emptiness is more important than fullness.” he wrote in Starck explications . Hence, the famous transparent chair he designed in 1998, and named The Marie, that is introduced as an “almost perfect object.” Just as the work that culminated in the birth of Venus tried to reach the “elegance of the minimal” according to Philippe Starck

Between April 2007 and the fall of 2011 (Steve Jobs died on October 5th, 2011), the Starcks travelled to Palo Alto one Sunday a month, usually with Thierry Gaugain—“my right arm, an exceptional character,” states the designer. Each session lasted twelve almost uninterrupted hours. The work was done on a coffee table, their backs bent, their noses only three feet above the floor. That is how it was. A torment for the bon vivant Philippe Starck, the usual posture for the ascetic Steve Jobs, invariably dressed in the black turtlenecks designed for him by Issey Miyake. It never occurred to the billionaire to even offer them a drink. “A large window hung above the space where we used to work,” recalls Starck. “We were literally cooking. From time to time Laurene would look in, “Have you offered them something to drink?” He would then return with a glass of water. There was never any food in his kitchen. Other than once when we ate together.” Starck remembers their host barely touched the dishes. Apart from his strict and hardcore vegan nutritional fads and phobias, Jobs was already gravely ill, cancer had been eating away at him since 2003. The Starcks say that each time they hugged him, they had the feeling that they would soon be holding nothing but a sheet of paper in their arms. “It still makes me tear up,” the decorator says—and while he easily draws the picture of an “poser," or "a show off", his eyes do, in fact, fill with tears at the memory.

A POT OF HONEY EVERY YEAR

In his conversations with Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs told the story of his yacht’s creation stating that Philippe Starck simply “helped” him design its interior design. It would be an understatement to say the latter did not appreciate this delegation. He considers himself the true parent of this floating unidentified object made of aluminum and glass, with its perfectly flat teak bridges and a beveled prow. If he is speaking—“for the first and the last time,” he emphasizes,—about his work on this project, and his relationship with Jobs, it is not only to provide “ a more nuanced analysis” of the strange client who commissioned it, but also, in great part, to set the record straight.

For him, there are two important facts that must be remembered. The first is that he, Philippe Starck, was chosen out of everyone else by the great man to bring his nautical dream into material existence. He recalls an anecdote told by Steve Jobs : “Every year we go on vacation on my friend Larry Ellison’s boat [the other Silicon Valley genius, founder of Oracle, according to Forbes in 2013 the world’s fifth richest man, is a sailing fanatic]. And every year, I say to myself, I too should have a boat built. But I don’t do it. Two years ago, I decided I was going to go for it. I looked at everything, asked everyone, and came to the conclusion that only one person can do it: you.” Even with an ego inflated with helium, how can one not keel over at such praise? “It was more than an honor,” Starck says, “a sacrament.” No doubt he means a consecration. Liturgical words are omnipresent in the mouth of this claimed atheist. During our conversation, he later invoked the “philosophical communion” of two souls in love with perfection.

So, Super Starck left their first meeting entranced. Galvanized by the confidence the most demanding of clients has placed in him. “He was giving me carte blanche, in some way.” The following night, in Los Angeles, he says he was struck by inspiration. Here, the second important fact, “I designed it all—all, all, all, in one and a half hours. The whole thing was wrapped up. I work extremely quickly.” Under what circumstances? “I was in bed. My wife was sleeping next to me. Los Angeles reminded me of Steve, Steve sailing… I said to myself, “Hang on, I’m going to draw it.” Jobs had given him very simples rules to work with. The length of the hull : 82 meters exactly. The number of passengers: “Family and crew. A total of six rooms, all of them identical.” And above all, one requirement: silence. “Steve wanted to be sure that the teenagers could be set up in the front of the boat when he was at the back and vice-versa. He was obsessed with silence. In his home, children did not make noise, nor the dog, nor his wife… no one made any noise, ever.”

Even on July 11th, 2008, the day the world discovered the iPhone 3G, the little house remained preternaturally calm. Starck remembers being the bewitched witness of this moment . “The entire world was in an uproar, people were standing in line for hours, in front of stores. It was the greatest launch of all time [barely three days later, Apple announced it had sold over a million units], the greatest investment and he barely seemed to register it. Not a single phone call made or received. Wow! That's true aristocracy in organization and mastery of self.”

At the next meeting, initially planned as the second contact between them, Starck arrived “with all the drawings.” He was carrying a large suitcase—“1.2 meters, 1.3 meters,” he deems—that contained the mock up of the future yacht. After a moment of perplexity, Jobs was wonderstruck and supposedly exclaimed: “It’s more than I could never [sic] imagine.” Starck’s freeform translation: “The world’s most powerful man, known as being the most intransigent, incapable of saying thank you or bravo, was telling us, “This is beyond all my dreams.””

Incredible indeed. Jobs’ biography, that was published after his death, underscores the genius’ versatility, his disingenuousness, his propensity to humiliate, to be obnoxious with his most faithful friends and collaborators—in short, to burn everything he adored. Steve Wozniak, Apple’s co-founder, or John Sculley, the historical CEO of the Apple company, paid the price. “He could be charming with those he detested, just as he could be detestable with those he loved.” writes Isaacson. Had their collaboration lasted longer, perhaps Philippe Starck too would have had to suffer Steve Jobs’ moods. When I suggested this hypothesis, he frowned. “I’m not sure about that,” he answered me, “He liked us. Through this boat, we came to be among the three or four friends that really mattered to him.” As proof of this, he offers the fact that every year, the California billionaire would send a pot of honey from his own hives. And that he sometimes expressed a touching preoccupation for to the young couple he and Jasmine formed. On the fated day, when in religious silence, the plans drawn by the decorator were “scanned and rescanned,” examined from every angle by Jobs in the course of a few minutes, he says he only heard him utter four “very pleasing” sentences. The first was, “Are you going to get married?” Answer: “Maybe.” The second: “Are you planning to have children?” An even more elliptical answer, “Euh…” “I knew it, I was telling Laurene,” he had smilingly answered. And the last: “Very well, carry on like this. See you next month.” For Starck, this too is a point of pride: “I don’t believe he’d ever experienced it in his life. We’re used to it: in general, people don’t talk, they find whatever is being presented to them to be very fine. But coming from him—especially when we learned in the book, after his death, the way he treated others—it was stunning.”

Philippe Starck admits, nevertheless, to having first-hand experienced the down side of this 'detail freak'(dixit his autobiography).The four years that followed the initial approval consisted of a millimeter by millimeter examination of the plans. “In order to achieve the height of intelligence in everything,” explains the designer rather cryptically. According to him, nothing was modified of his initial drawings, but everything was revisited. “With Thierry Gaugain, we reinvented marine technology, no less,” he says. “Nothing like it had been undertaken, not since the dawn of time. Still, the client argued about every detail, and for Starck it sometimes went “beyond the annoying.” “I don't want to sound pretentious,” he says, “but we are professionals. We have designed rockets [for Virgin Galactic], motorcycles [for Aprilia], electric cars, boats… When we present a solution, we know it’s the right one. With Thierry Gaugain, we would float him flurries of ideas at each meeting, and for his part, he’d answer, “No, no, no.” Until the moment when, because he had in mind the shipyard's schedule, he would pick an idea and say, “I’ve got it, this is what we’ll do.” And, to our shattered stupefaction, we would realize it was the solution we had presented him with the previous month or two years prior. “But Steve…” It was to no avail, he had appropriated it.”

It seems this was Steve Jobs' way. Those close to him had resigned themselves to referring to his “distortion of reality” syndrome. The most enormous distortion in Starck’s eyes was the one forming the basis of the “lie” perpetrated about him in Jobs' talks with Isaacson that served primarily as material for his hagiography (before devoting himself to the founder of Apple, this ex-head of CNN and Time had written biographies of two monumental figures in science: Albert Einstein and Benjamin Franklin). On page 595 of the book, he writes, “To outfit the interior, he hired Philippe Starck, the French designer, who would come regularly to Palo Alto to work on the plans.” Starck is still indignant. “He must have said that two months before he died,” he snaps, ”How could he still want to lie to serve his own glory? So powerful was his ego, such was the distortion of reality within him that he was incapable of recognizing the work of another person.” In the version of the story according to Starck, that he presents as the only acceptable one, beginning with the second meeting, “not a single wall, not the smallest detail of the hull” underwent any changes from what he had imagined in his bed in Los Angeles. “We looked at everything during the course of four years, but nothing shifted by even a tenth of a millimeter.” Seated next to him, Jasmine too sighs at the ingratitude of “Steve.” “And yet he displayed such great confidence in us.”

A PHILOSOPHICAL OBJECT

On a Sunday in 2009, the year of his liver transplant, Jobs told them, “I’m going to disappear for three months, I will call you on such and such a day at 10 o’clock.” On the said day and hour, he asked them to come back to Palo Alto. A reunion. “We were very moved,” recalls Starck. “He hated personal questions, but at the time, after such a resurrection, I was compelled to ask him, “Have you thought about your life? Are there things you would like to change?” He answered, “Nothing. I would not want a different one. I have had a great deal of time to reflect, I have thought about the boat. There are, today, three things that matter to me: my family, my company and you guys.” He was talking about Jasmine and I! He added, “My only problem is that you don’t live on my street.” Moved, the Starcks set to work, bending over the coffee table. Five years later, in his immaculate office, Starck proclaims this with a bit of exaltation, “There will never again be a boat of that quality again. Because never again will two madmen come together to accomplish such a task. There'll never again be so much creativity, rigor, and above all philosophy, applied to a material creation. It was not a yacht that Steve and I were constructing, we were embarked on a philosophical action, implemented according to a quasi-religious process. We formed a single brain with four lobes.”

One might wonder what exactly an 82-meter philosophical object, capable of crossing all the world’s seas, looks like. “When we talked, it was not to decide whether it was better to use aluminum or steel. The questions that arose were of an ethical order. As for the details, try to imagine the height of minimalism.” Where specifics are concerned, that is not a lot to go with. At most, the designer proffers that the cockpit was “a piece of curved glass, 23 meters long, 6 centimeters thick,”—a prowess whose materialization was entrusted to the chief engineer of the Apple Stores. He even refuses to confirm the description of the control panel equipped with seven 27” iMac screens, released in 2012 at the time of the ship’s launch, upon its completion by the Royal de Vries ship yard in the south-west of Amsterdam (this is also true of a few other particularities, like the presence of a large terrace with an integrated Jacuzzi, and avant-gardist processes for aeration, and completely silent electronically controlled blinds.) “There are just commands, but there is no complex home automation. Each person would have their own portable controls with them.” he explained in Mers & Bateaux . Photographs of this floating building were taken at its launch from the Dutch shipyard, but no views of the interior have ever been communicated. “The philosophy was the same as for the exterior: the least of everything,” confides Starck. With a reproachful pout, he adds, “In Steve’s lifetime, I had formulated recommendations for the furnishings, but Laurene put in the furniture she wanted. I’m not there to interfere in these people’s taste.”

Starck also refused to confirm the cost of this prodigious vessel of the seas. The press has mentioned 100 million euros. He neither says yes nor no and dodges the question with this circumlocution: “Its price is totally normal relative to the work undertaken and to its religious quality.” We’ll have to wait for Laurene Jobs or her children to sell the yacht to hope to learn its worth—and even then, there’s nothing to say the transaction figures would be divulged. As for the rest, it seems unlikely that the inheritors should choose one day to get rid of what was the last dream of the founder of Apple. “I know it’s possible that I may die and leave Laurene with a half-finished boat,” he confided to Isaacson a few months before his passing, “but I must continue. Otherwise, it would be admitting that I am going to die.”

The Venus sailed, granted. Yet its launch was not without turmoil. When he heard the men at the Royal de Vries shipyard usurp the boat’s paternity in front of Jobs’ family, collaborators and friends, Philippe Starck flew into a rage. “It was a good shipyard, but with people whose moral fiber was particularly elastic and who had the staggering nerve to say that they had designed this extraordinary boat, the most inventive in the world,” he says indignantly. “I haver never experienced in my entire life such violence through a lie.” Jasmine interrupts him to elaborate on the scene, “You said, “You've got to be kidding!” and we took off.” No doubt, his heart was still raging when on the following December 21st, the French decorator ordered the yacht seized in the port of Aaalsmeer.” He invoked a lawsuit brought for two unpaid invoices. Indeed, Steve Jobs’ inheritors refused to pay the 3 million euros that are owed to Starck on a total fee of 9 million euros—they consider the $6 million already paid match the percentage agreed upon in advance.

“Some lawyer probably wanted to look clever,” the decorator murmurs today. At the time, he was forced to admit no written document formalized the financial aspect of his agreement with Jobs. His representative in Holland explained that the two men were “very close during the period of the creation of the design,” and during the construction, adding that it was “in part why no formal work agreement had been drawn up.” Three days later, a compromise was reached between the two parties’ lawyers and the seizure order was lifted. The Venus embarked a cargo ship not long thereafter, headed for the United States. No image of Steve Jobs aboard it or overseeing its construction has ever been shown—no one even knows if he was able to see the boat with his own eyes. Philippe Starck, for his part, has never seen it sail.

Par Pierre Groppo

Par La rédaction de Vanity Fair

Steve Jobs’ $250 million superyacht, Venus, finally sets sail

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Venus is 80 meters long — over 250 feet — and has living quarters to accommodate 12 people. Its equipment and living space, according to SWNS.com, can be controlled from seven 27-inch iMacs. The ship has a very unusual design, with a very straight bow and gently sloping stern, and a profile dominated by the horizontal lines of its waterline, windows, deck, and cabin roof.

Above: Steve Jobs’ yacht at sea off Rotterdam, the Netherlands

Philippe Starck created the yacht with complete carte blanche  from the founder and CEO of Apple, as he recently told Super Yacht Times . That was extremely unusual for Jobs, who was notoriously detail-oriented, but this demonstrates the respect he had for the legendary European designer.

Of course, that was simply for the major, exterior design. For the interior, Jobs had more to say. As SYT recounts, Starck and Jobs spent considerable time over those details:

“We spent just one day every six weeks, for five years, on refinements. Millimeter by millimeter. Detail by detail.”

As the photos show, the result of the collaboration between Starck and Jobs is extreme simplicity.

Starck said that “there is not a single useless item inside. … Not a single useless pillow, or a useless object. In that sense, it is the opposite of other boats. Other boats try to show off more and more. Venus is revolutionary. It is the extreme opposite.”

The sad reality, of course, is that Jobs never got to sail in the boat that he built.

Top image credit: Super Yacht Times

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Your Insider’s Look at Steve Jobs’ Yacht Venus

The Venus Yacht was built for Steve Jobs, or it almost was. Though Jobs commissioned the yacht, it was launched in 2012, a year after Jobs passed away. He never got to see the finished product. It’s been said that he actually spent the last several years before his death helping to custom design the Venus as his intent was to use it to sail the world with his family.

Venus was designed by a company called Ubik, owned by designer Phillipe Starck. Starck  handled both the interior design and the exterior design. The build was undertaken by renowned shipyard Feadship out of the Netherlands.

The yacht is a little lighter than some of her size thanks to the fact she doesn’t have a steel hull like many superyachts do. Instead, she features both an aluminum hull and an aluminum superstructure. She also features teak decks.

The exterior design features many straight lines and right angles. The stern is squared and it features an axe bow. There’s also very little to see on deck even from above. Unlike most yachts , there is no visible radar arch or satellite equipment because it’s obscured within a box structure to maintain that simple design look. 

Who Owns the Venus Yacht?

As a result of the death of Steve Jobs the yacht became part of his estate which belongs to his widow Laurene Powell Jobs. She has maintained ownership of the yacht since it was finished in 2012. There was a brief time when the yacht was impounded after its construction. This was caused by a dispute over payment. Phillipe Starck claimed that the fee for his work was never paid in full. He was said to have designed the yacht for about $9 million and $3 million was still owing. After 10 days, Jobs’ estate settled the account and the yacht was delivered.

How Big is the Yacht Venus?

The Venus measures in at a respectable 257 feet in length. So clearly she qualifies as a superyacht, even if she doesn’t quite measure up to Jeff Bezos’ 417-foot megayacht Koru . The Venus also has a beam of about 38 feet and her volume comes in at 1,876 GT which is actually a little on the light side for such a large yacht, in part due to the aluminum construction.

How Much Did the Venus Yacht Cost?

Steve Jobs commissioned the yacht for an impressive $120 million. Yachts like the Eclipse are alleged to be upwards of $1.5 billion and even the massive Azzam has been confirmed at around $600 million so obviously the Venus is not the most expensive vessel, but it’s nothing to sniff at, either.

We know from what we mentioned above that $9 million of that alone went to the designer of the yacht. Like many yachts of this size there is also a considerable cost related to the yearly operations of the vessel. Things like crew salaries, taxes and fuel costs are considerable. In light of that, it’s been estimated that it costs between $10 million and $20 million just to keep the boat on the water for a year. That may seem steep but it’s definitely normal for most yachts.

Is the Venus Yacht Available for Charter?

Jobs was a notoriously private man in many ways and his family remains the same, at least insofar as this yacht is concerned. It’s never been made available for charter and, in fact, very little is known about it.

How Fast is the Venus Yacht and What Engines Does It Use?

The Venus makes use of a pair of twin diesel MTU (16V 4000 M73) 16-cylinder engines. Together they produce  3,433 horsepower. This allows her to cruise at speeds of 16 knots. She can also reach a maximum speed of 22 knots which is fairly substantial for a yacht of her size.

What’s the Interior of the Venus Yacht Like?

As you can tell from the unique hull design, there is a minimalist aesthetic to the yacht. It does resemble some Apple products from the time period in its way. Towards the after of the vessel on the starboard side there’s a launch bay for tenders that can be deployed by crane and apparently the design included a wheelhouse powered by seven 27″ iMacs.

The aft of the vessel opens to a large beach club for guests to enjoy the ocean and the sun, features a swim platform and lounge area.

The yacht has the capacity to accommodate 12 guests across 6 cabins. There is also room for a crew of 22 to maintain the vessel. The design is simple and clean all over. Glass, silver and white with everything polished is what you see all over the vessel.

Features and Amenities

The features of the Venus are actually totally unknown to this day. Jobs has never invited photographers on board to get a glimpse of what the cabins or living spaces may look like so there’s no word on how it all came together. Likewise, the designer has not shared any of the blueprints or ideas that went into making the yacht. This is common among designers of superyachts, however, and many have to sign non-disclosure agreements so they couldn’t share details even if they wanted to. 

Until such time as Laurene Jobs opts to either open the yacht to the public or sell it, the interior details are going to remain a mystery beyond what observers are able to glimpse from afar.

The Bottom Line

The Venus was a yacht partially designed and commissioned by Steve Jobs before his death in 2011. The yacht was finished in 2012 so he never got to see the final product on the water. Jobs once admitted he knew he might die before the yacht was finished but didn’t want to stop his work because he felt like it was an admission that he was going to die and didn’t want to quit like that.

The yacht is very uniquely designed in a minimalist style which reminds many of how Apple products in general are designed. The yacht cost Jobs about $120 million. It measures in at 257 feet in length.

Laurene Jobs is the current owner of the yacht and she has maintained her privacy with the vessel. As such, not only is it not available for charter but no one has seen images of the inside either.

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Steve Jobs’s Superyacht in Florida

• By Yachting Staff
• Updated: February 7, 2013

Where is Venus today? Track her by AIS:

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Late Steve Job’s Super Yacht Venus

As inspiring and revolutionary Steve Jobs’ engineering concept is, equally brilliant is the late innovator’s mega yacht named Venus. Having commissioned the vessel even before the diagnosis of his terminal illness, Jobs intended the vessel to be his swan-song , after his terminal health problem was brought to light. According to the reports, the mega yacht was put into operation in 2012, a year after Jobs’ untimely demise.

The designing concept of the vessel was carried out mainly by reputed French marine architect Philippe Starck with several noteworthy inputs provided by Jobs himself. However for a brief period, the designing of the vessel was almost stalled by the American tycoon on account of the state of his health, though he later resumed it as a way of ensuring that his legacy and presence was carried forth even in his absence.

Feadship is known world-wide as a specialist in building one-of-a-kind super yachts.

With regard to Venus, it has provided the following technical uniqueness:

• A stream-lined aluminium hull that replicates the visual effect of the Apple gadgetries
• State-of-the-art technological inclusions like incorporation of iMac systems to allow for superior manoeuvring on water
• Ultra-modern accommodation amenities

Controversy about Payment

Almost immediately after the mega yacht was launched, there was a slight controversy surrounding the Venus. Principle designer Philippe Starck alleged that the legal inheritors of the yacht had failed to pay the balance of his dues, amounting to around US$ four million. Following the allegation, the yacht was seized at the Rotterdam harbor before the defaulted dues were paid and settled by the late entrepreneur’s legal team on behalf of the inheritors.

The mega yacht was named for the Greco-Roman Goddess of romance, Venus and it was with great love that Steve Jobs envisioned its completion. Although unfortunately he was unable to see his vision brought to life, yacht Venus holds one lasting memory of Jobs to his loved and cherished ones.

Video of Superyacht Venus

You may also like to read:- The Awe-Inspiring Adastra Superyacht

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Battle of the super yachts: Jeff Bezos' Y721 versus Steve Jobs' 'Venus'

The Jeff Bezos superyacht Y721, minus masts. Credit: Boat International

Bezos' superyacht made headlines in February because it is reportedly too big to fit underneath the historic Koningshaven Bridge in Rotterdam — a structure dating back to 1879, bombed by the Nazis in World War II, and rebuilt after the war.

News that the Koningshaven Bridge must be partially disassembled for the Bezos-owned vessel to pass underneath it angered local residents. According to Dutch News.nl , the bridge was renovated in 2017 and, at the time, city officials promised that the bridge would not be disassembled again.

The Bezos yacht isn't the only ship but for a technology billionaire to catch the attention of the media, however. Here's how the vessel stacks up versus Venus , a motor yacht built for late Apple cofounder Steve Jobs.

Bezos' yacht, which is codenamed Y721, measures 127 meters in length. When the yacht launches in 2022, it will be the world's largest sailing superyacht.

The yacht built for Jobs , dubbed Venus , is smaller at 78.2 meters. During the construction of Venus , the entire project was largely shrouded in secrecy.

Construction

Y721 is made from both aluminum and steel. It's being built in the Netherland by Oceanco, a privately owned custom yacht builder. Bezos reportedly commissioned the yacht in 2018, and it was glimpsed by the public for the first time in 2021.

The yacht is a sailing ship, with three massive masts providing its moving power. It's not clear if it has a backup diesel for propulsion, but probably does for electric power. Oceanco built the ship based on some of its previous sailing yacht designs, which it claims are powerful and ecologically friendly.

Venus is constructed out of lightweight aluminum and features plenty of glass windows along its hull. The ship, designed by Philippe Starck and Jobs and built at Headship, launched in 2012 — a full year after Jobs died. That means the late Apple cofounder never had the chance to set foot on the vessel.

The Jobs family yacht, on the other hand, is a motor-powered ship. It features a pair of MTU 16V 4000 M73 Diesel engines and has a maximum speed of 22 knots.

Y721 carries a hefty price tag of 430 million euros, or about $485 million.

Venus was constructed for Jobs at a cost of 105 million euros, or about $118 million at the time. Adjusted for inflation, Venus costs about $128 million.

Y721 features a striking design with a black hull and white superstructure. Its overall design aesthetic is described as "classic," according to the boating community.

Back in 2021, information about Y721 appeared in Amazon Unbound , a book about Bezos and Amazon. According to the book, the superyacht is "one of the finest sailing yachts in existence" and features "several decks" and "three enormous masts." A secondary support boat is also being built alongside the ship.

Venus , on the other hand, sports a more high-tech aesthetic. It features a modern white design and aluminum and glass construction, as well as a variety of interesting details that you'd expect from a ship co-designed by Jobs himself.

In true Apple fashion, there are several innovative features that make Venus stand out. There's a false top deck concealing antennas and receivers, as well as extensive glass windows all around its exterior. Details about its interior design have been kept a close secret, however.

Current location

Y721 is currently being constructed at the Oceanco shipyard in Alblasserdam, the Netherlands. The city is about 20 kilometers away from Rotterdam and the only route out to sea is past the Koningshaven Bridge. Because it has yet to launch, Y721 has not been anywhere in open waters, and it's not clear why the shipbuilding firm built it in a yard that would require the bridge to be disassembled, given that the mast height and draft was known before construction.

Venus was built at the Koninklijke De Vries shipyards owned by Feadship in Aalsmeer, the Netherlands. Since it launched in 2012, it has sailed around the world and is occasionally spotted in various port cites. Because Jobs died before construction was complete, the yacht is currently owned by his widow, Laurene Powell Jobs.

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Steve Jobs’ Luxury Yacht Spotted Sailing In Mexico

By Luke Dormehl • 2:08 am, March 20, 2014

• Top stories

Venus — the 256-foot super-yacht, commissioned by Steve Jobs — has been sighted in Mexico’s Cabo San Lucas bay.

Despite telling journalist John Markoff in 1980 that, “There’s no yacht in my future,” Jobs began working on building his dream sailing vessel around 2008 prior to his liver transplant. Jobs commissioned legendary French designer Philippe Starck to design the yacht, which cost more than €100 million to build, although Jobs died before he was able to use it.

In Walter Isaacson’s biography of the late Apple CEO, he describes how he recruited the chief designer of the Apple Stores to design a special glass for the yacht, capable of providing structural support. On board, a row of 27-inch iMacs are used to control the ship from its wheelhouse.

The last we heard, Jobs’ yacht was stuck in an Amsterdam port pending a payment to Starck by lawyers representing Jobs’ estate.

This issue has apparently been sorted, since according to a story by French Apple website Mac4Ever, Venus has been spotted sailing since earlier this spring.

Another photograph of the yacht in Cabo San Lucas can be seen below:

Correction: Subsequent to filing this story, I have been corrected on the location of this sighting. Venus In Portugal is the name of the boat and not, as I originally thought, the location of its spotting.

Source: Instagram

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Follow in the wake of Venus: 9 destinations visited by Steve Jobs' yacht

The late Steve Jobs’ superyacht Venus has been making her way around Turkey and the Greek islands over the past two weeks. The 78 metre Feadship Venus is now owned by Steve Jobs’ widow, Laurene Powell Jobs, and is not available for charter . Luxury yacht Venus was commissioned by the late founder of Apple, Steve Jobs, in 2008 and continues to turn heads wherever she docks.

Here are nine of the destinations Venus has visited while cruising along Turkey’s Turquoise Coast and the Greek Islands.

After cruising across from Majorca, the late Steve Job’s luxury yacht Venus ’ first stop in Turkey was at Fethiye, a common starting point for a private vacation or luxury yacht charters in Turkey .

Fethiye is located on the site of the ancient city of Telmessos and in 1958 an earthquake destroyed almost all of the town. More than 50 years later the city has now recovered and it a bustling centre of the Western Mediterranean.

The huge bay offers good protection from prevailing winds if you want to anchor out. Alternatively, Ece Marina can accommodate yachts up to 60 metres.

From Fethyiye Venus then cruised the 11 nautical miles to Göcek. The heart of yacht tourism in the area Göcek is starting to regularly attract some of the world’s largest yachts .

The area boasts plenty of coves and beaches, which are great for watersports. There are also a host of ancient cities within an hour’s drive of Göcek.

Göcek has three marinas that can accommodate yachts up to 70 metres. If you are looking for high-end luxury D-Marin Göcek can now accommodate yachts up to 75 metres. It has a white sand beach and is situated next to luxury resort hotel D-Resort. For a central location Skopea marina is within walking distance of the town’s facilities and also has a semi-Olympic sized swimming pool. Alternatively for a quieter setting, Club Marina is only a five-minute walk away from Göcek and offers beautiful natural scenery.

Picture courtesy of Lukash Dmitry/Shutterstock.com

Bozburun peninsula

Venus went on to spend three days exploring Marmaris and the Bozburun peninsula. Marmaris is a tourist hotspot with a waterfront offering host of restaurants. Heading down the coast from Marmaris you are treated to a taste of real turkey. Even during the peak summer period the area remains relatively quiet and offers you the chance to step back in time.

There are no superyacht marinas on the peninsula but, as Venus did, there are plenty of secluded places in which to anchor overnight.

PIcture courtesy of Nejdet Duzen/Shutterstock.com

From the Bozburun peninsula Venus cruised across into Greek waters. Despite the current economical issues and a VAT increase on luxury yacht charters brokers are keen to impress that is still “business as usual” in the country.

Venus visited Milos, the southwestern most island in the Cyclades, which offers more than 75 beaches with crystal blue waters. Because Milos is volcanic is has spectacular rock formations as well as hot springs and stunning cliffs.

You are best to anchor off the island and then tender in to explore further. Milos can also be used as a stop off destination when returning to Athens after exploring the Cyclades Islands on a superyacht .

Picture courtesy of Leoks/Shutterstock.com

From Milos Venus next went on to anchor off Paros. Located at the heart of the Cyclades islands Paros is a popular tourist destination and has traditional whitewashed villages and stunning cliff paths to hike along. Naoussa on the northeaster side of the island has a fishing harbour and also has a small selection of clubs if you fancy letting your hair down.

There are a variety of different secluded anchorages to choose from around the island.

Picture courtesy of Haris Vythoulkas/Shutterstock.com

Superyacht Venus then travelled on to the Greek Island of Samos, which is famous for its vineyards that produce samiotiko wine. The island was home to ancient philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras, the astronomer Aristarchus and the philosopher Epicurus. When Venus anchored off the coast of Samos she attracted attention from a host of locals and tourist.

If you are looking for a marina on the Southeast side of the island Samos Marina can berth yachts up to 50 metres.

Picture courtesy of  Evantravels/Shutterstock.com

From the Greek islands Venus then cruised back across to Kuşadası on the Turkish coast. The town has Turkey’s busiest cruised port and is the coastal gateway to Ephesus.

Kuşadasi Marina can accommodate yachts up to 70 metres in length and offers top quality facilities. Venus only had a short in Kuşadası before heading up the coast.

Picture courtesy of Worradirek/Shutterstock.com

Superyacht Venus then headed up to the seaside town of Ayvalık. The town has interesting architecture with a host of churches and monasteries. The busiest area of the town is the harbour where fishing boats and sightseeing trips are regularly anchored. Ayvalik Marina has 200 berths and can host superyachts up to 40 metres. The marina also offers extensive repair and maintenance services.

Picture courtesy of  Yulia GursoyShutterstock.com

Venus then made her way up to the cultural melting point of Istanbul. Sitting astride the Bosphorus the city straddles Europe and Asia and is a popular start or finish destination for private cruises or luxury yacht charters in Turkey . The iconic city is home to numerous interesting buildings and tourist attractions and is also one of many James Bond locations to visit on a superyacht .

Kalamis and Fenerbahçe marinas are situated next to each five miles east of the city centre and are a good location from which to explore the city. They can both accommodate yachts up to 60 metres and have restaurants, shops and a swimming pool.

Picture courtesy of  Sj Travel Photo And Video/Shutterstock.com

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The iYacht: Why boaters love Steve Jobs yachting vision

Updated: Apr 27, 2020

The set of values and beliefs of Steve Jobs and Apple may also be the most popular topics yacht owners care about while sailing and during their stay onboard.

Obviously all owners care for a great product but additionally more than half of luxury yacht owners search and pay extra for simplicity. During the design of Steve Jobs’ superyacht "we tried to reach the elegance of the minimal", revealed designer Philippe Starck in an interview with Vanity Fair . Steve Jobs superyacht was baptised "Venus", released in 2012 and build by the world leader in the field of pure custom superyachts: Feadship.

Steve actually choose Stark as the designer for his particular minimalistic design skills. In 1998 Stark designed the famous transparent chair named La Marie which Steve called an “almost perfect object”.

During their first meeting Jobs gave Starck very simples rules to work: The length of the hull: 82 meters exactly. The number of passengers: “Family and crew. A total of six rooms, all of them identical.” And above all, one requirement: silence.

Adding simplicity to a yacht or maybe better said: not adding any complex items is the key for relaxation on-board. Venus has room for a fixed crew of 22, however on smaller 70 feet luxury yachts there is no space for a crew without adding complexity to the overall yachting experience.

Why do boaters love simplicity on-board so much? Three reasons jump out from the surveys.

Yachting in itself is a hassle. Before getting in that place on the aft-deck enjoying the views, relaxing and being in the now, a lot of hurdles need to be past: plan itineraries, making harbor reservations, the trip from home to yacht, fill the tanks, searching for local groceries, on-board systems check and startup, manoeuvre from the dock, stow the fenders and lines…It’s nothing like taking a car for a spin.

The majority of yachters search for rest and peace on-board. They come to recover from their busy daily life to spend time with family and loved ones. Clutter and untidy rooms, noise, buttons and screens in every corner result in mental confusion: not the best state to recover. Simplicity is an enabler for guests on board to declutter their thoughts and feelings and to return to a calm and peaceful state of mind.

Technology is complicated. A yacht is a network of mechanical, electronic and software components from various suppliers working together. Each single functionality comes with a manual which the luxury yacht owner is supposed to understand and remember.

Note to Boaters: Simplicity ads up and goes beyond interior and exterior design choices. Do focus on the simplicity of the technology, amenities and services on board.

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