Today in Apple history: Steve Jobs’ yacht launches — without Steve

October 28, 2012: More than a year after Steve Jobs’ death, the luxury yacht he commissioned is shown off for the first time, launched from a shipyard in North Holland. Called Venus, the distinctive-looking yacht was one of the big personal projects Jobs pursued in his last years.

As Jobs told biographer Walter Isaacson, “I have to keep going on it. If I don’t, it’s an admission that I’m about to die.”

Sadly, Jobs never lived to see the finished vessel.

Steve Jobs’ yacht Venus launches

Steve Jobs‘ yacht was the product of six years of design and construction work. Despite the Apple co-founder’s vast fortune, many who knew him personally registered surprised that such a project would appeal to him. Even Jobs himself denied desiring such a craft.

“There’s no yacht in my future,” he told journalist John Markoff in 1980.

As Jobs later told Isaacson, however, the yacht represented something: a confidence that he would be able to overcome his health troubles. He began working on it around 2008, just prior to his liver transplant.

Designed by Philippe Starck

The design of the $118 million, 256-foot yacht proved somewhat divisive. Although it is the work of renowned French designer Philippe Starck, it bears Jobs’ and Apple’s fingerprints. Jobs recruited the chief designer of Apple’s retail stores to create a special glass for the vessel. And while on board, the owner could control the Venus via a row of 27-inch iMacs.

“As expected, the planned yacht was sleek and minimalist,” Isaacson wrote. “The teak decks were perfectly flat and unblemished by any accouterments. As at an Apple store, the cabin windows were large panes, almost floor to ceiling, and the main living area was designed to have walls of glass that were forty feet long and ten feet high.”

Jobs’ widow, Laurene Powell Jobs, attended the October 28, 2012, launch of the yacht. (So did his children, who used the yacht in the years since.)

Before the launch could happen, however, the ship suffered another setback. Authorities impounded it in an Amsterdam port due to an outstanding payment owed to designer Starck.

In July 2024, Steve Jobs’ yacht made headlines again when it drifted into a larger ship called the Lady Moura, owned by Mexican businessman Ricardo Salinas, off the coast of Naples, Italy. According to Boat International, damage to the two incredibly expensive yachts was “minimal and cosmetic.”

See where Steve Jobs’ yacht is now

Want to know where Steve Jobs’ yacht is right now? You can keep tabs on Venus’ location around the world using data from ShipSpotting.com.