yacht moglie di steve jobs

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 Julie Patriat

Par Sarah Mercier

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 Audrey Bellaiche

Par La rédaction de Vanity Fair

Par Bénédicte Burguet

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:

View this post on Instagram A post shared by woodsholeinn (@woodsholeinn)

See How Tech CEOs Spend Their Money

[ Gizmodo ]

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VENUS Yacht – Captivating $120M Superyacht

The VENUS yacht was delivered in 2012 by Feadship, a Dutch shipbuilding company.

Phillippe Stark designed the VENUS, and Jobs was an integral part of the yacht’s design. The 78m yacht has garnered a lot of attention thanks to the famous name who commissioned it, but there are not many details about the boat’s interior available.

VENUS yacht interior

The interior design of the VENUS yacht was largely designed by Steve Jobs, in combination with Philippe Starck .

The yacht’s interior has never been published, and the details available are in short supply. There is a lot of intrigue as to what the yacht’s interior looks like, thanks to the famous name who commissioned it.

One can only imagine that the interior reflects Apple’s slogan “Think Different,” with an eye-catching and minimalist interior to reflect the design of the yacht’s exterior.

It is known that the bridge is lined with 27-inch Mac computer screens, with large cabin windows that are almost floor to ceiling, with a main living area. There is accommodation for 12 guests in 6 suites and 22 crew.

The VENUS yacht has a unique exterior, reflecting the sleekness and eye-catching nature of Apple’s products, and was designed by Philippe Starck.

Feadship was commissioned to execute the build. Everything about the exterior is eye-catching and unique, from the silver paint job to the stainless steel details to the line of rectangular windows that run from the bow.

The structure of VENUS features 90-degree angles, an axe bow for piercing waves, and a flat and somewhat unusually squared stern that opens to reveal a tender garage.

There is no visible radar arch or satellite equipment, as all the equipment is hidden within a box that keeps the VENUS exterior appearance clean and sleek.

Specifications

The 78m VENUS yacht has an 11.8m beam and a 3.1m draft that makes the boat appear low-slung in the water.

The 2 MTU engines give VENUS a top speed of 20.5kn and a cruising speed of 18kn. She displaces 1,876 GT and can cover 5500 nautical miles.

She has an annual running cost of $10-$15 million and was rumored to cost $100 million to build. VENUS was refitted in 2015 at Monaco Marine.

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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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Superyacht owned by Steve Job's widow Laurene docks in Cairns

• The $120million Venus superyacht boasts six bedrooms and is 255ft long
• It docked in Cairns, Queensland on Friday
•  The vessel is owned by Apple co-founder Steve Jobs' widow Laurene Powell Jobs

The Venus superyacht is one of the most expensive and luxurious boats in the world.

And on Friday, the $120million vessel owned by Apple co-founder Steve Jobs' widow Laurene Powell Jobs docked in Cairns, Australia. 

It's unclear if Laurene, 59, was on the scene, but various staffers were pictured loading Venus with supplies.

The superyacht looked like the picture of perfection as it sat in the crystal green and blue waters of Queensland .

At 255ft long, it dwarfed several smaller yachts that were docked nearby.

The spectacular sea vessel was last spotted in November, 2022, when Laurene enjoyed a holiday in Barbados. 

The glamorous socialite had spent the afternoon swanning around the luxury 5-star hotel Sandy Lane's restaurants, shops and spas. 

Powell was left widowed after Jobs passed away, age 56, from complications from pancreatic cancer in October 2011. They had three children together and Powell is also step-mother to Jobs' daughter, Lisa Brennan-Jobs.

When Jobs died, most of his assets passed on to his wife, making her one of the 50 richest people in the world.

Powell married Jobs in 1991 - ten years before the release of the first iPod - and now manages a fortune estimated to be worth $12.3 billion according to Forbes.

In addition to the Venus, she owns two private jets, four large real estate properties and a large stake in the Walt Disney Company.

The Venus was Steve Jobs' final masterpiece, after he commissioned it in 2008 and worked painstakingly on the design with superstar French product designer Philippe Starck.

He did not survive to see the ship completed and launched, dying of pancreatic cancer a year before work was finished in 2012.

In his final years, Steve Jobs told his biographer Walter Isaacson: 'I know that it's possible I will die and leave Laurene with a half-built boat. But I have to keep going on it. If I don't, it's an admission that I'm about to die.'

Starck helped design the sleek 256-foot long vessel, and Jobs enlisted the chief engineer of the Apple Stores to design reinforced glass for its walls, according to his biographer Walter Isaacson.

Starck spoke about Venus in an interview with French Vanity Fair, explaining the yacht houses six bedrooms along with communication systems between the kids' rooms in the front and the adult quarters in the rear.

'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,' Starck said.

'In his home, children did not make noise, nor the dog, nor his wife … no one made any noise, ever.'

The 255ft yacht is made of light-weight aluminium and Jobs employed the chief engineer of his Apple stores to help design special glass that allowed the ship to be installed with ten-foot-high windows across the hull.

The yacht can fit 12 guests on board in six suites as well as 22 crewmembers.

The interior also features 27-Mac computer screens, with large cabin windows along the yacht. 

Looking like a floating Apple store, the yacht bears all the hallmarks of a new Jobs-inspired creation — crisp white lines, polished metal, glass.

The superyacht has a long white hull with a row of circular portholes just above the water line and two glass-walled cabins on the top deck, one on top of the other.

Laurene Powell Jobs' $120million luxury yacht Venus

The $120 million luxury yacht Venus was designed by Steve Jobs and French product designer Philippe Starck.

Jobs commissioned the yacht in 2008, but he did not survive to see the ship completed and launched, dying of pancreatic cancer before work was finished in 2012.

The yacht can fit 12 guests on board in six suites as well as 22 crewmembers. 

Starck spoke about Venus in an interview with French Vanity Fair, explaining the yacht houses six bedrooms along with communication systems between the kids' rooms in the front and the adult quarters in the rear. 

Looking like a floating Apple store, the yacht bears all the hallmarks of a new Jobs-inspired creation — crisp white lines, polished metal, glass. 

The superyacht has a long white hull with a row of circular portholes just above the water line and two glass-walled cabins on the top deck, one on top of the other. 

• Superyachts

Steve Jobs’ $120 million Venus superyacht is taking all focus on Australia’s Gold Coast

• The Venus superyacht is a fully custom creation, built for the late Apple founder Steve Jobs
• Sadly, Jobs never had the chance to set foot on board before his untimely death in 2011, the year before the superyacht launched
• Venus remains in the family, now owned by his widow Laurene Powell Jobs

Published on Jan 24, 2024 at 9:29PM (UTC+4)

• by Adam Gray

Last updated on Jan 25, 2024 at 5:03PM (UTC+4)

We all know what it’s like – you pull up to an exotic destination with your $120 million superyacht and everyone’s looking.

Okay, maybe we don’t – but the late Steve Job’s wife, Laurene Powell Jobs, certainly does.

Her Venus superyacht is accustomed to turning heads wherever it goes, and that’s exactly what happened when the luxury yacht was recently spotted on Australia’s beautiful Gold Coast.

READ MORE! 260ft superyacht concept dubbed ‘Sports Car On The High Seas’

The futuristic 256-foot-long beauty docked at Southport Yacht Club after sailing into the Seaway earlier this week.

And to be fair, it doesn’t look out of place in the idyllic city famed for its long sandy beaches, surfing spots, and gastronomic paradise.

Well, not entirely out of place.

And it’s not the first time Venus superyacht has been spotted in Australia.

Last year, the superyacht was spotted in Cairns, where it dwarfed every other boat in the harbor.

However, its not just its size that makes Venus a stellar ship .

The vessel’s exterior is dominated by a striking silver paint job, gleaming stainless-steel details, and a line of rectangular windows.

Built by Feadship and designed by Philippe Starck, she is long and lean, with an 11.8 meter beam and a low-slung superstructure made entirely of glass.

Starck designed Venus’ exterior with straight lines and 90-degree angles.

She has an axe bow, and an unusual flat, squared stern, which opens to reveal a tender garage.

The long forward deck, planked in teak, is completely free of clutter.

Notably, she has no visible radar arch or satellite equipment; all of this is hidden within a box to keep Venus’s exterior extremely clean.

Venus’s minimalist style, reminiscent of Apple products, extends to the interior, where multiple Mac computer screens line the bridge windows.

Other than glimpses into the bridge, the Venus superyacht’s interior has never been seen publicly.

But what we do know is, the ship can be controlled with an iPhone-like device, and that it sleeps 12 guests in six well-designed cabins, served by a crew of 22.

Sadly, Jobs never had the chance to set foot on board before his untimely death in 2011, the year before the superyacht launched.

“There will never again be a boat of that quality. Because never again will two madmen come together to accomplish such a task,” Starck said in an interview with Vanity Fair.

“There’ll never again be so much creativity, rigor, and above all, philosophy applied to a material creation,” he added.

“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.”

• Tags - Apple , superyachts , Yacht , Yachts

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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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Incredible superyacht built for Steve Jobs docks on the Gold Coast

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Steve Jobs' yacht gives insights into his design process

Jobs and noted designer Philippe Starck spent five years working out the details of the super yacht Venus.

• Finalist for the Nesta Tipping Point prize and a degree in broadcast journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Last month, we stumbled upon videos of Steve Jobs' yacht , the Venus, which was reportedly unveiled a year after Jobs' death. The sleek, clean design has a certain Apple Store look to it, complete with a row of 27-inch iMacs on board, but there's no evidence the crew will don those blue Genius bar shirts.

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Then recently SuperYacht Times interviewed French designer Philippe Starck , who Jobs collaborated with to design Venus. (You might remember erroneous reports earlier this year that alleged Starck was involved in designing a new Apple product -- turns out the project in question was actually Jobs' yacht.)

What Starck reveals about co-creating with Jobs sheds some light on the late icon's iDesign process.

Starck says that in the beginning, in a move that would seem uncharacteristic, Jobs gave him "carte blanche."

[Jobs] just gave me the length and the number of guests he wanted to accommodate, and that was it. In our very first meeting we had little time to speak, so I told him, I will design it, as if it is for myself.

But that was just the beginning of the design process with Jobs. Starck goes on to say that he and Jobs would spend one day every six weeks, from 2007 until his death in 2011, going over refinements "Millimetre by millimetre. Detail by detail."

Here's where the notorious control freak in Jobs apparently kicks in. Starck had nothing but praise for his client in the interview, but he describes a process of constantly simplifying and refining the design for Venus.

We came back on the same details until they were perfect. We had many calls about parameters, the result is the perfect application of our joined philosophy.

Perhaps not ironically, that philosophy was a page pulled from Apple's playbook -- striving for simplicity with purpose. The result is something more "stark" (sorry) than the ostentatious character of other super yachts. Starck claims there is not a single "useless pillow" or other object inside Venus.

I haven't heard of any plans for an Apple iYacht, but I wouldn't be surprised if some developer out there somewhere is busy at work for the Jobs family on some apps designed specifically for Venus' future voyages.

Steve Jobs’ Venus superyacht docked in Cairns, Australia after completing an 11-day, 4,200-mile journey across the Pacific. The $120 million vessel instantly became the center of attention as it dwarfed every other boat in the harbor.

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Steve Jobs’ Yacht ‘Venus’ Spotted

• By Yachting Staff
• Updated: January 12, 2016

Bonus: Watch Video of Venus maneuvering through a drawbridge from a drone!

Bonus: Watch Video of the unveiling of Steve Jobs’ yacht Venus !

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