The yacht ordered by Apple’s late founder Steve Jobs and designed by French Philippe Starck’s Ubik company at the De Vries shipyard in Aalsmeer (AFP-Yonhap News)
THE HAGUE (AFP) ― Steve Jobs’ superyacht Venus was free to leave Amsterdam port Monday after the late Apple co-founder’s estate paid a deposit to resolve a dispute with designer Philippe Starck, who had had the yacht impounded.
“The Venus is no longer impounded, we have found a solution,” Gerard Moussault, a Hague-based lawyer for the Jobs estate, told AFP.
“A security deposit was paid into a bank account, but I cannot say for how much,” Moussault said after French designer Starck last week asked Amsterdam bailiffs to seize the sleek 70-meter yacht.
The vessel, which reportedly cost over 100 million euros ($130 million) to build, was impounded after Starck said Jobs’ estate still owed him 3 million euros for his contribution to its design.
Starck said he was to be paid a fixed sum of 9 million euros, while lawyers for Jobs’ estate said he was to be paid a percentage of the project’s cost equal to 6 million euros.
The Dutch-built yacht, which was only unveiled in October ― just over a year after Jobs died ― is in Amsterdam harbor because of bad weather.
“The captain is waiting for better weather to set sail,” Moussault said.
Starck’s lawyer in the Netherlands, Roelant Klaassen, said on Friday that Jobs and Starck were “very close in the period that the design was made and the building proceeded.
”That’s one of the reasons there was no formal agreement on the job,” he said.
The yacht will reportedly be shipped by another ship to the United States, where Jobs’ family, including widow Laurene Powell Jobs and their three children Reed, Erin and Eve, are to take charge of her.
The aluminium-hulled yacht was built by Royal De Vries shipbuilder’s in Aalsmeer, just south of Amsterdam, with interiors designed by Starck.
The bridge features a control panel made up of an array of seven iMac computers.
