Dead Steve Jobs' mega yacht seized by testy Philippe Starck
Steve Jobs' luxury yacht has been impounded in Amsterdam port after French designer Philippe Starck's bill wasn't paid. Bailiffs boarded the shiny new boat, named Venus, last Wednesday and have chained it to the dock, the Dutch newspaper Financieele Dagblad reported. Venus has been seized over Starck's claim that Jobs' estate …
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Re: iSore
It just needs everything above the sheer removed and replaced by something from a yacht designer. Why upset the fish?
Re: iSore
Are you familiar with the Pontiac Aztec? UGLY angular pretense of a car,
or the Dodge Magnum, one FUGLY car... I had the misfortune of driving one for a week.
need to treat both of them to a ground zero event.
If his yacht was 150 feet they would make one 150.1ft. Bet it's got no $amsung / android devices onboard.
Are they sure it was really Steve's yacht? The corners aren't round...
@Jones
Simply because St Jobs decreed that only iThings made by Apple could have rounded corners. Not even a... well, never mind.
First lord of the Sith?
That's not a yacht - it's a bloody Star Destroyer! Seriously, google some pics
Yo ho
"Classy to impound a dead mans yacht."
If it makes you feel better I don't think he was using at the time.
Then again Silicon Valley pirates believe everything on the high seas be theirs for the takin'
I'm not surprised
After all, you expect funny goings on aboard the good ship Venus.
USS Monitor x CSS Virginia (Merrimack) - with a cakebox on top!
That's what it puts me in mind of: if you crossed the USS Monitor with the CSS Virginia (nee USS Merrimack) - and then put a cakebox on top, i'd wager that you'd end up with something like that.
Re: USS Monitor x CSS Virginia (Merrimack) - with a cakebox on top!
Is that a private yacht or a US coastguard cutter ? I'm looking for the 20mm guns and the helicopter landing pad.
I thought it looked like a WW1 German battlevaggen
But they got out of port, once.
Wait ... a designer came in massively under budget? PAY HIM.
simple, legal and plenty of precedent
If you have a house built and do not pay the architect, said architect can absolutely get a lien on your house. (That's why you signed a retainer agreement - in the small print it talks about liens for non-payment).
Starck is what is known as the naval architect, he did the design work, evidently the client approved it and gave the go-ahead to build. Whether we like the result or not is immaterial, Jobs didn't build it to please us, he built it to please himself (and had all his fanbois pay for it - neat trick!)
Establishing Starck's lien is pretty simple.
Under maritime law, a ship CAN be "arrested" for non-payment of bills. Since a ship is mobile (and most houses are not), chaining a ship to a dock is the usual (and fairly common) procedure. This usually gets the owner's attention and results in payment or at least some prompt and fevered negotiation as opposed to the usual brush-off creditors often get and debtors usually try. It is very difficult to effectively sue someone in another country, maritime law recognizes this and takes a very direct approach (chains) to enforcing liens.
This only works on civilian vessels - recently a frigate belonging to a South American country was arrested in a West African port because the "owner" didn't pay for fuel somewhere else - the lien was perfected and the guys showed up with chains. The frigate was armed . . . unlike merchant vessels . . . and fired a few warning shots at the guys with the chains (who immediately lost ALL interest in enforcing a lien for some third party somewhere else in the world) and then the SA government offered to order the frigate to shell the port unless their naval vessel was allowed to leave unmolested. Since the frigate had more firepower than the West African country, the "host" saw the ultimate reasonableness of this proposal and wished the frigate a prompt bon voyage.
Maritime law is VERY different from civil law. Starck had some good legal advice. Remember also we only saw the result AFTER it hit the fan, most probably "his people" and "their people" had already been talking about this and had reached an impasse.
Re: simple, legal and plenty of precedent
Is Starck a qualified naval architect? I am impressed. (I have the Lloyds manual - it's a 56Mbyte PDF. And there are professional exams and things. Clearly he has been wasted doing lemon squeezers.)
Re: simple, legal and plenty of precedent
A naval architect? He is a designer not an architect. If you look at his history he primarily designs interiors (hotels, houses etc) household items (chairs, radios) and iirc a motorbike (I believe it won awards but not sales and was described as a crime against motorcycling). Leaving aside any judgement on his ability as art is subjective and he obviously pays the bills with his work so someone likes it, his work is limited to aesthetics not structural design. The closest he gets to an exception is some wind turbines and then possibly only because they don't really have an interior.
I really doubt Job's would be able to insure a luxury yacht whose plans were drawn up by a many who picks sofa colours and designs chairs and alarm clocks. He probably had input into the primary design phase, providing sketches of a hull form or overall aesthetic principals etc, i.e. he said make it look like this picture and a marine engineer \ naval architect actually drew up the plans after they finished crying. He probably did a lot of the interior design as well. Whilst he may still have a claim based on his work (this I never doubted) he probably has no actual claim because there is no paperwork otherwise wouldn't the executors of Steve's estate have paid it?
Re: simple, legal and plenty of precedent
"Maritime law is VERY different from civil law. Starck had some good legal advice. Remember also we only saw the result AFTER it hit the fan, most probably "his people" and "their people" had already been talking about this and had reached an impasse."
This, since there's actually quite a lengthy legal procedure before the "bailiffs" (actually "deurwaarder", who are the *only* ones able to seize and if necessary auction posessions in this here country, and are appointed by royal proclamation. ) put chains on a ship.
In due processs sufficient evidence has to be presented in court to convince a judge of the merit of the claim, especially if the contract is verbal ( which is *quite* binding in the netherlands), and ample opportunity must be given to the offending party by the deurwaarder to pay up.
It's quite a lengthy procedure that can take up to a year to end up in reposession, and even then *only* if you utterly refuse to acknowledge the deurwaarder ( which includes appeal in court).
So the Jobs estate did drop a ball or two there to let things get this far.
Re: simple, legal and plenty of precedent
I wonder about the amount of evidence it is possible to have about a verbal contract with a dead guy. There may have been witnesses but if they are employees of the toaster designer then they could be issues with impartiality right?
Re: simple, legal and plenty of precedent
You are right, but the sarcasm tag didn't reproduce in my post.
Re: simple, legal and plenty of precedent
Ribsosome, sorry my post was aimed at the a/c not yourself :-) apologies for not making that clear. I note that Phillipes website doesn't show any affiliation to any maritime architectural organisations.
Doesn't sound like the contract is a problem...
It really doesn't sound like the contract is a problem (although I must agree, I would have done it in writing.) It sounds like the estate is not disputing the 6%, but rather the cost of the yacht (which to me seems odd, I would think design would be flat rate, not based on what the tub ends up costing to make.)
In this area of the globe it is not unusual - nay standing practice - for an architect to be paid a percentage of the ultimate bill for putting up a building.
Now, Mr. S+arck (not to be confused with Philippe de Staercke, a Belgian gangster of some disrepute) fancies himself a bit of a devil-designs-all, and has some buildings to his name, so I'm guessing he figured the tub was so ugly it couldn't be confused with a ship so it must've been a building.
Now, apparently the 6% is not in question, only whether the amount upon which this is calculated should be 100 or 150 million AM$.
Since he is convinced he is owed money, he proceeded to have a claim put on a property belonging to the party owing him the dosh. The fact that in this case it is the offending article (I choose my words carefully) itself is merely a coincidence. He probably estimated his chances of putting the chain on the US estate (or parts of it) to have a very slim chance of success. I wonder where he got that idea.
Nevertheless, someone will have to have the whole kaboodle surveyed and subsequently have to convince a court.
If Flippo thinks he was shortchanged I wish him the best of luck.
Damn, that boat is UGLY. It looks like the illegitimate offspring of HMS Dreadnought and the Villa Savoye. I thought Jobs was supposed to have some sort of sense of aesthetics.
nice boat
Jesus, that's one ugly boat.
Whoever designed that must be starck raving mad.
even in death Jobs and family are still tools
another rich 1%er trying not to pay what they agreed upon.
Bring more Apple products to #Occupy.
contracts and agreements are for the peons. Weaselling is the way of the Upper Crust.
just pay the man what ya owe ya b*ttheads! or let him keep the thing if it's "not important".
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