Steve Jobs’ Superyacht Impounded in Payment Dispute

Wired/ By Damon Lavrinc

The megayacht that Steve Jobs commissioned in the final years of his life has been impounded in Amsterdam after a payment dispute by the designer, Philippe Starck.

The Venus, a 100-million-euro, 260-foot-long yacht, made its unofficial debut in late October. It’s currently stuck in the Port of Amsterdam after Starck hired a debt-collection agency to attempt to remit the final payment for his design.

According to lawyers at Ubik – Starck’s design company – speaking with Reuters, the designer has only received 6 million of the 9-million-euro commission and is seeking the rest of the payment before the Venus will be released.

“These guys [Jobs and Starck] trusted each other, so there wasn’t a very detailed contract,” Roelant Klaassen, a lawyer for Ubik, told Reuters.

The Venus is a floating ode to both Jobs and Starck’s minimalist aesthetic. Made entirely out of aluminum, with 40-foot-long floor-to-ceiling windows lining the passenger compartment and seven 27-inch iMacs making up the command center.

In Walter Isaacson’s biography of Jobs, the late Apple CEO is quoted as saying that, “I know that it’s possible I will die and leave Laurene with a half-built boat, but I have to keep going on. If I don’t, it’s an admission that I’m about to die.”