The captain's yacht was a large support craft built into the design of several Federation starship classes, including the Galaxy-class and Sovereign-class. It was docked to the underside of the saucer section.

On the USS Enterprise-E, the name of the captain's yacht was the Cousteau. In 2375, the crew of the USS Enterprise-E used the Cousteau to travel to the surface of the Ba'ku planet. (TNG: "New Ground", okudagram; Star Trek: Insurrection)

Appendices

Background information

Designer Andrew Probert came up with the concept of the captain's yacht while designing the USS Enterprise-D. Although it was never seen in use, it was labeled on the master systems display screen in main engineering and on Commander William T. Riker's bridge console ("New Ground"), docked at the bottom of the saucer section almost directly opposite the main bridge. Probert suggested possible ways for the yacht to be used during the first season, including not showing the yacht but mentioning it in dialogue, but his ideas were rejected. The Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual (p. 164) claims that the producers almost used the yacht in TNG: "Samaritan Snare", but decided to use an "executive shuttlecraft" due to budgetary constraints. According to Patrick Stewart, the yacht would have been called Calypso. (Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual, p. 164) This name for the yacht was mentioned in the notes to the captain's yacht entry of the Star Trek Encyclopedia (3rd ed., p. 83). With the latest edition of the Star Trek Encyclopedia (4th ed., vol. 1, p. 117), the name has been changed to Cousteau.

A captain's yacht is visible on the underside of several Nebula-class starships, such as the USS Phoenix and USS Prometheus as well.

Rick Sternbach designed similar craft into the USS Voyager and the USS Equinox, known as the aeroshuttle and the waverider, respectively. Like on the Enterprise-D, however, these vessels were only depicted on technical schematics and never seen in operation or referred to in dialogue.

Ronald B. Moore notes in the Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual that naval tradition would insist on calling such a craft the Captain's gig rather than the Captain's yacht.

Apocrypha

In the 1969 UK Comic strip series, the dome at the bottom of the saucer section of the Constitution-class USS Enterprise is also seen detaching as a similar auxiliary vehicle.

The Captain's yacht is an obtainable ship in Star Trek Online. It is one of the game's many bonuses for subscribers and Lifetime subscribers, obtainable once a player reaches 400 days subscribed or automatically once the Lifetime subscription is activated. It resembles the Cousteau.

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