Steve Jobs’ luxury yacht now free to leave port after payment dispute is settled

Steve Jobs' luxury yacht is now free to sail from Amsterdam following the settlement of a payment dispute between the Jobs estate and the acclaimed designer Philippe Starck, who helped Jobs design the vessel.

A legal wrangle between the Jobs estate and French designer Philippe Starck which saw Steve Jobs’ superyacht impounded in the Port of Amsterdam last Wednesday has been resolved, according to lawyers involved in the matter. The $127-million 80-meter luxury yacht is now free to leave the port.

The boat, called Venus, was designed by Jobs with the help of Starck. Work began in 2007, though the Apple co-founder died in 2011 before he had a chance to see the boat set sail.

The dispute arose when a lawyer representing Starck said last week that the acclaimed designer had only received 6 million euros out of a 9-million-euro commission for his design work. However, according to a lawyer for the Jobs estate, the issue has been sorted out.

“A security deposit was paid into a bank account, but I cannot say for how much,” Gerard Moussault, a Dutch lawyer acting on behalf of the Jobs estate, told the AFP news agency on Monday.

One of the most remarkable elements of the story is that it appears there was no formal agreement or contract for the design job, according to Starck’s lawyer, Roelant Klaassen.

He explained 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.

Venus was built by Dutch custom yacht builder Feadship using lightweight aluminum. It features 3-meter-high clear glass windows and has seven 27-inch iMacs on the bridge, used for navigation as well as other boat-based functions.

According to AFP, the yacht will be shipped by another vessel to Steve Jobs’ family in the US. Little is currently known about what will become of Venus, though it seems many Apple fans would love to see it installed as the tech company’s very first floating Apple store.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com