VENUS

0830 hours, February 16, 2015, Simpson Lagoon, St. Martin: We arrived at the docks of Budget Marine, at the south side of the Lagoon. St. Martin has far more marine maintenance facilities than we found on St. Thomas. They are mostly located on the Dutch side where the bulk of the marine activity is located. There are two large chandleries in the Lagoon, Budget Marine and Island Water World. I understand these are the two largest in the Caribbean. Both have catalogs and pricing is similar, if not less than West Marine. The Budget Marine store is similar in size to a large West Marine store, not a super store like Fort Lauderdale, but the next size down. We had come to find a jamb cleat and other hardware to complete the rigging on our boarding ramp, which Allen helped me finish. 

I had arranged with Shore Support, located next to the Marina office, to assist me with an oil change. With both engines and both generators we use nearly 50 gallons. They brought a small barge along side and pumped the oil into an empty 55 gallon drum on the barge. Although this is all the work we needed done, for the several days we were in the Marina we watched a parade of tradesman coming and going from the 10 super yachts stern tied, to the other side of our dock. 

While I was helping with the oil change Beth, Julie and Allen had gone in search of pizza and to check out the beach in Simpson Baai on the outside just south of the bridge. They had no luck finding pizza and ended up at St. Maartin Yacht Club which overlooks the end of the channel at the bridge entering the Lagoon. As they were finishing, the traffic for the 1500 inbound bridge opening came through the cannel. Venus, Steve Jobs boat, was at the end of the procession. 

Venus was completed a year after Steve Jobs died and is owned by his widow, Laurene Powell Jobs. This highly unusual design was created by French designer Philippe Starck who is neither a naval architect or a building architect. He is a very creative and successful furniture and product designer, and interior and exterior building designer with a number of hotels and restaurants to his credit. He was even at one time offered the position artistic director of Pierre Cardin's publishing house.

Clearly the design of Venus was on a fresh piece of paper and does not appear to have been burdened by evolutionary history of naval architecture.  Other than the very clean simple lines the design differs from more conventional design in three ways: (1) It incorporates very large glass windows in its topsides.  I understand this was possible by using the very strong glass Steve Jobs had designed for the iPhone. (The glass used in the cabin structure design is not unlike several recent Wally designs); (2) It treats "roof top" electronics as a land architect would treat roof top machinery, by screening it with slatted lattice work; and (3) By ignoring functional needs such as a swim step or low stern cockpit to help facilitate docking. Although the stern folds down to create a "beach club" the dock lines come out of the hull below the level of the floor of the folded down transom and approximately 25 ft below the cockpit deck. There is a separate fold down aft boarding ramp, in the center of the "beach club" fold down transom, which could perhaps be used to transfer lines while stern tying. But what about the outside stern line while side tying? What about the condition where there isn't enough room side tying to fold down the beach club?  Clearly Philippe Starck missed or ignored the design principle, "form follows function". We have all seen electronic superstructure designs on some mega yachts that are sculptural art where form is handled artistically with out compromising function. This is great architecture. Form with disregard for function may be pretty but it is not good architecture. 


As reported earlier this was our third sighting. We first saw Venus was in North Sound on New Years Eve. The second was in IGY's Yacht Haven Grande Marina in Charlotte Amalie during our visit their.