A Brief History of Captain's Yatchs... 

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The improved survivability in higher pressure atmospheres and underwater is indeed a neat feature of later Captain's Yachts. Good forms of specialization for both scientific and military endeavors. It would be great to see more of them.

That waverider design and backstory is actually super cool

Honestly the wave rider and the arowshuttle are such a cool ships, it's a shame we never got to see them on screen

Your story about the flip phone was a nice touch as it shows the tension between pragmatism and culture. It is especially ironic considering even in the real world we have in some ways surpassed the technology of star trek. I love seeing all the little features of the smaller craft.

One use that the Calypso could be good for is first contact situations where initial contact has been made with the government(s) and you're revealing yourself to the public at large. You'd want your delegation to arrive with a bit more pageantry than just appearing out of thin air but also in a non-threatening way. The fact the Calypso has landing gear, engines and little else implies that it was just a fancy orbital shuttle rather than a diplomatic amenity intended for more advanced warp-capable cultures.

If I was a captain, I'd be taking the yacht out all the time for a quick getaway

Great video showing possible capabilities of these "Captains Yachts": I like the Waverider best as it's presented being able to go in liquid or other environments the mothership is incapable or would struggle in. I really liked your pointing out its connection to modern submarines - it had me thinking of the yellow stingray-like FS-1 "Flying Sub" from "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" TV series.

The Delta Flyer is a superfluous decoy to direct your attention away from the fact that they forgot about the captains yacht and didn't want to include it mid series or it would open lots of plotholes.

The runabout rear room set being made "For a TNG Episode" with the intent of handing it over to DS9 only for DS9 to never use it is really really funny to me.

I'm a total Nova class waverider fan. You made a very good point about being built tougher for undersea and planetary pressures.

I love the Waverider for its abilities to weather high pressure environments, Aero shuttle for how cool and do air tricks, the Cousteau is probably the ship I'd used for family event and the Aquarius class would be my go-to vessel for everything alongside the Runabout.

I loved your shuttle video and this one is even better ! I absolutely love the smaller craft of Star Trek !

The Intrepid's Aeroshuttle really kicked off a trend that is a fantastic idea for any ship, It truly is a pity we never got to see it on screen. A high capability auxiliary craft that is practically able to aid the mothership in regular duties, surveying lower priority targets, Scouting ahead, conducting logistical work, even some tactical missions like Commando raids and recon. An onboard engineering team could probably reconfigure the interior to match the mission profile fairly easily. The idea to use the main fuselage of the Danube as a base is a great idea, Enhancement to one could be applied to the other fairly easily. All the extra space provided by the wings can be used to improve it's abilities further. I head canoned that it would attach Probes to the underside, similar to your idea with the Peregrine. Waverider having a more high pressure tolerant design is an interesting idea, we've seen craft be modified for that sort of environment before, but the Waverider would be properly built for it, which is an interesting niche. Although that interior has a bit of "Wasted space" with two "Bathrooms" I'm not sure how much extra nacelle Line of sight the Sovereign's Yacht really has, some perhaps, but not a lot I suspect. Delta Flyer I think is most akin to the Type-11 shuttlecraft, both have similar internal space to walk around in, though Delta Flyer has more bulk for systems and is likely more capable, kind of bridging the gap between a Runabout and a large shuttle. But not really stepping over the line into Runabout territory. Both are effectively takes on the "Heavy-shuttle" idea. With the Type-11 probably being more suitable for a wider range of Starship classes in service. Whereas Delta Flyer really only had to be built of Voyager and it's specific circumstances.

"Professor, how many atmospheres can the ship handle?" "Well, considering it's a spaceship, anywhere between zero and one." A quote from Futurama that best applies to the Waverider.

The Waverider is definitely my favorite and makes a lot of sense. Sadly, there's just no getting around the simple fact that the writers forgot about the existence of the Calypso and Aero. Given the initial theme of Voyager's speed and maneuverability, I'd wager a couple internet cookies that the designers envisioned some kind of starship parkour and the Aero going places the Intrepid couldn't like a dense asteroid field. The best idea for the Calypso I've ever came up with (just now actually) would be in a deep space assignment. If the Captain wanted/needed shore leave and there were no hospitable worlds around, you could drop him in the middle of nowhere in the Calypso. If he took a couple weeks or months off, the Enterprise could visit nearby areas of interest, do its surveys and studies, and pick up the Captain when done. You could also argue that if the entire Galaxy wasn't needed for a diplomatic mission, just its negotiating team, the Calypso could host negotiations if the rest of the ship was needed for something else. And to those who might think the Calypso is overkill for shore leave when the Enterprise has holodecks, arboretums, and what not, let me get personal for a second. I live with my bosses. All they have to do is call out or knock, and I'm on the job. That 'availability' never stops. Ever. In my case, I can leave home and do my own thing which takes that load off. So when the Captain needs a holiday, sometimes its not enough to just stay away from the bridge and in those times, the Calypso would be worth its weight in gold pressed latinum. As for the Aquarius, my question would be are you getting the most bang for your buck if you keep a completely functional starship in another ship's pocket. Maybe on a warship or deep space vessel.

I do think that Captain's Yachts still have a place, one more extra craft is always a welcome one. I find the yachts as pretty cool, much more modest than the mega yachts we have today.

3:35 OK, Dennis. Kind of creepy.

All captain yachts should have multiple very large tractor emitters. And probably double the amount of reaction control thrusters that it would need in order to tow its mothership. Would also be useful to have a Romulun style telepresence Unit on board so that it can be crewed remotely by telepathic crewmates from the mothership’s hollow deck.

Ah, the Captain's Yacht. Brings back memories of a plotline my old guild ran that involved getting an admiral's yacht blown up after taking it for a... dubiously legal joyride.

The captains yacht might exist cause you might not want people on the ship proper. Or you need to have a NEUTRAL location on a planet to hold a meeting. It seems like it has a specific diplomatic role. Where you might need to bring the conference room to a specific location. Or maybe there is a historical location for a SIGNING of a treaty where you did not want to have it in a simple shuttle but something more like a conference room. Its not one of those things a ship might ever need. But there are going to be some cases where YOU DO need something like it. And well, there it is. The Original Galaxy yacht was thinking only of DIPLOMATIC needs. Future yachts were full ships.

My main problem is with making ships as part of the hull or a special 'launch tube' for them. They should be autonomous ships in their own right, but small enough to use the shuttle bay. And if they carry their own escort, have them carry more than one. The one from the Galaxy Class could have just as well used one of the smaller shuttle bays exclusively. Shuttles are simply too limited in use anyway. If there is an emergency the ship may have to choose to leave a shuttle behind. Sure, you can say we'll be back soon, but what if not? If a ship carries ships like the Danube or larger, they can make their way to the next starbase or Federation system themselves. On a practical note, let's say the craft carried are 25-100 metres in length, you can easily create episodes about one such ship on it's separate mission. For comparison,. that would put them into the size range of Millenium Falcon (35 m) from Star Wars Rocinante (46 m) from The Expanse Serenity (82 m) from Serenity And here it would make sense that they have their own shuttles outside of the hull to safe space on the inside, see Serenity. As we've seen in the Expanse, you could even make an entire show around one such ship. They could even be picked up by a larger ship just to make some repairs.

It would also be handy for first contact. The main ship could leave and allow the CT to stay for diplomatic reasons.

The Cousteou Captains Yacht on the Enterprise E soon became -otherwise known as Picard's Party Palace for Crusher and Vash.Although apparently you could sneak the whole Enterprise Bridge Crew on it other then Riker and LaForge for a few days and no one would be any the wiser so perhaps it wasnt just used for that maybe he had wild parties with Romulan Ale and the rest of the bridge crew as well. 🤣

I wouldn't say that I transitioned early in terms of phones, i always just carried a basic slider phone for years as well but I caved in 2012. I got a 650 dollar windows phone for my first smartphone, I kinda went crazy in that regard. It was literally the newest thing back then and I had to have one, but you could have gotten a modern flip phone if you wanted to. And yes they can do all the stuff that any smartphone can do as well.

Another purpose of the Captain's Yacht might have to do with the fact that the captain is expected to be the last one to leave when ordering the crew to abandon ship. The Captain's Yacht's close proximity to the bridge would allow the captain to wait until the very last minute to make a quick getaway before the ship explodes after ensuring the rest of the crew have gotten to their escape pods.

I liked this and I'm surprised you didn't point out the real big feature of a captain's yacht for diplomatic purposes. It can show the flag and literally be the Captain's private pad without having to fly the heavily armed warsh- exploration vessel too close to a space station or planet in a high tense situation.

Just a silly headcanon but i've always thought there was a temporal incident involving a Galaxy class style captains yacht which which is where the idea of fly saucers come from

I have a couple of OC characters set in Star Trek, both aboard an Akira class vessel that has it's own Voyager like adventure out in the void. I imagine that in addition to the many shuttles that can fit inside an Akira they'd have a Waverider as well, internally stored since they have more than enough room and it would be something of a general assistant craft; it would increase the ship's effective sensor range with it's own, it would capable of landing large teams for surveys and diplomatic missions, could assist in combat if the need arose. Of course it'd be tough like it's mothership too!

For the Galaxy class' yacht, I think the design for it is more of something that is designed to function as more of a ground facility there. Rather than constantly beaming people down and back up, you land the yacht and ground operations happen there rather than constant transfer between ship and ground. Also, while the designs don't necessarily show them with later ships, if you go with STO where several were developed, those ships do have them and can slot in several different types there, though you don't see the captain's yachts (and their analogues) very often because they're Lifetime sub items.

Definitely the Cousteau for me, though as to your question on why they got rid of them, I think it might have something to do with the primary roles of certain starships. Ships like the Galaxy, Intrepid, and Nova, are all dedicated explorers/science ships (though less so in the Galaxy's case) so the idea was that you have a daughter craft that can perform a more specialized roll in exploration. As for the Sovereign, the flagship of the anti-borg fleet, that I think has more to do with the fact that as the next flagship of starfleet, especially once the D had a bit of a bad encounter with one particularly insane BoP, combined with the rising threat of the Dominion, the idea of a daughter craft on their most powerful vessels was appealing and can serve as something of a large troop transport/fire support platform if a Sovereign for whatever reason is tied down in a planetary assault. Then of course, after the Dominion war, we get the Hobus supernova and the later attack starfleet's shipyards dealing a heavy blow to some pretty key shipbuilding, the Captain's yacht might have been something to take off designs that were more meant to restrengthen the fleet than do any real in-depth exploration, though that doesn't mean that such craft weren't being made and tested. Then you get to the Odyssey class, where the size of the Odyssey can as you said hold these yachts in the main hanger while Aquarius is a whole ship in of itself, so it might reveal a slow but steady rise in technology, where these daughter craft might be able to operate more independently. Maybe in the future we might see more scientific versions of the Aquarius that operate either on their own within federation space, or attached to a starbase to do more detailed looks of things that don't require the use of a larger starship close to the frontiers of federation space as they aren't that durable when compared to larger ships. As the Aquarius, that I have called the Daring, on my own Odyssey in STO can attest to on the fact that the AI on it likes to agro the biggest enemy ship and get's knocked out of the fight ten seconds after I launch the thing. Either way, I would like to see more yachts return on starships. And for them to be used more often on screen.

I think the biggest problem with the Captain's Yacht, is that no one uses them. It's the Captain's Yacht. Who's brash enough to ask the Captain if they can take it for a research spin? The runabout in the shuttle bay will do the job. So if the Captain isn't using it, it ain't getting used. Wasted resources. Hell, the Voyager built the Delta Flyer from scratch in a day. Why? Was the Captain's Yacht not good enough? When everyone was on replicator rations? What a waste of replicator resources.

Honestly the end of captain’s yachts may have just come with more widespread distribution of more modern runabouts that could match them for performance.

I really love this channel a lot

Smartphones are MORE than a simple phone Smartphones are mini computers, browse the web, listen to music, play games, watch movies and shows-specially if you get the Xreal glasses to augment a giant screen, and so many more uses then a simple flip phone

I'm sort of imagining a Stealth version of the Waverider being introduced during the Dominion War. It's shape lends itself to Special Ops work.

Not sure if you know the history of the names of the captain's yachts of the Enterprises D and E, but the Enterprise-E's captain's yacht was named for famed oceanographer and inventor of the scuba diving system Jacques Cousteau, while the Enterprise-D's captain's yacht was named after his oceanic exploratory ship, the Calypso.

The flip phone did most closely resemble Kirk’s communicator.

Frankly I respect the flip phone primitivism.

Cousteau looks like a 24th century space Winnebago... man I was born too soon.

It’s an interesting idea but one I think is better suited to a smaller craft. When we look at the idea of the “Captain’s Yacht”. It can have utility but is the juice worth the squeeze? We rarely see these in use. Primarily because they are so special. What do you do if it gets destroyed or damaged? Or if the docking port it uses was damaged well it was off on mission? The whole point of the Captain’s Yacht seems to be a bigger shuttle which is fine but on Galaxy class or Sovereign class ships they already have substantial shuttle bays. In a smaller ship like Nova or Defiant even Intrepid it makes more sense as it can serve as a reserve utility craft if the shuttle bay has been damaged. On later 25th century designs the proliferate they trade it off often for additional shuttle bays and the base shuttle is much closer to a runabout.

3.40 "because of the implication" Are these delegates in danger, Dennis?

Just let me restore an Archer class scout ship like the Sagittarius, let me borrow Scotty to automate all of its systems ... And I'm good.

It's a shame we never saw either the Calypso or the Aerowing in action in either Star Trek the Next Generation and Star Trek Voyager.

Something not specified in the video is that the Calypso has landing gear, so it could actually serve as a mobile ground-based HQ/Office for the Captain during diplomatic negotiations.

Maybe in the 25th century starfleet doesn't let ships go on solo missions so they pair them up with other ships that complament each other permission requirements.

2:04 What do you mean “no impulse engines”? It’s the big circle on the underside. Shown at 2:43.

You just can’t roll up on a new warp civilization in a galaxy class. Avoiding freak outs is useful.

"no impulse engines" *shows a cut away with clear label for impulse engine*

thoughts on the galaxy d captains yachts- very likely diplomatic use for when transporters aren't available for whatever reason and you need something that looks significantly different from the average peon type vehicle for cultures that demand some sort of class and status in treatment. the other big thing for it is that it is a lifepod +++. also there might be some sort of reason for having all those maneuvering engines.. and basically being a frisbee it might actually have more aerodynamic capability than your run of the mill shuttles. so it might be a preferable choice for if you have to take a vehicle into an atmosphere that is high energy and/or high turbulence. and apparently as it doesn't seem to have a warp system you don't have to worry about warp core breaches and warp plasma breaches (altho yes you still have lots of other nasty stuff with the standard engines and coolant systems).

I know you don't cover lower decks but uss cerrtios had what seemed to be a small captains yacht of unknown model held within the ship

It would be great if they designed a new ship to replace the Odyssey Class with a version of the Dauntless Class the same size if not a bit larger then the Odyssey. Have its secondary ship be a Protostar Class.

Captain's yachts are adapted to the main mission of their carrier ships' class. If Galaxy class stumble on early warp capable societies or energy based entities with diplomats who refuse to use teleporters, to have something more luxurious than a basic shuttle to carry them is a must.... so the Calypso is basically a space limousine who have no need for warp nacelles. Science ships have very sturdy portable lab captain's yachts ment to explore where the main ship can't.... meanwhile more military focused ships carry mini but deadly gunboat'like captain's yachts ment to implement their firepower. Depending of the mission, an Aquarius can't do what a Calypso do, and vis versa.

My personal ship design doesn't have a captain's yacht. Mostly because I don't have a place to put it, and it would put a hole in the armor. On a diplomatic design I would include one.

It should have a well stocked bar!

I do think the captain Yacht were pointless. Given how fast starfleet is able to design shuttles and runabout I do not think they are as useful throw on the flyer which can do alot and that was made with a ship with no support. While the yachts might have limited used the area on the ships were they are could be use for other things like photons or other systems

Galaxy's reminds me of the Jupiter 2

I think it does have impulse engine and warp drive I think on the warp drive two hatches on the bottom open up and the sales pop out and the impulse engine the same thing on the back a little slot on the back opens up and passenger comes out and this is done for stealth reasons it's not a cloaking device it's a stealth ship it's really hard to detect on any type of sensors when it activates itself field and it can only use thrusters when I when you when using the stealth build it cannot use thrusters so that's how it works like say they'll drop it off you know maybe and it uses a simple sentence to get in the solar system then all of a sudden it cuts impulse engine impulse engine goes back inside it activates itself field and uses thrusters then to get into orbit and land planet surface I think it was made for a for stealth missions the captain and them are wearing those suits those black suits behind enemy lines in like they get captured and they're like how many lights how many lights do you see laptop is s***I think that's what that's what the ship they used what they used to Calypso for that now the eclipse always transferred to another ship or the other ship had its own Calypso that they used

The idea of a captain's yacht on a starship made me roll my eyes like a helicopter but I've found it hard to describe why. So let's break it down. The 'yacht' is a separate ship and it has a permanent dock in the saucer of a starship. No way. Nope. Nuh huh. First it places an incredible vulnerability right under Picard's butt. No way it's 'armor' is as strong as the Enterprises. So there's a big ole fusion reactor or worse, warp cores with a much weaker hull shielding it from disruptor fire again, right under Picard's butt. Second, why not just put it in the hanger. Maybe the Captain has to walk a little bit. But they got turbo lifts. Much cheaper to make wing folding tech than a whole dock, and all the other stuff the yacht requires. And deep sea exploration, on every teenee tiny Nova class ship? Why? They got shields. They got probes that can go way further than any ship. I might believe an external repair ship or even a cargo hauler. Possibly even a fighter. But deep sea/high pressure exploration? That's like saying it's a delivery system for a planet destroying bomb that will help them fit in if they ever find themselves in the Evil Federation universe. It's just not going to come up very much. This was the same decadence and elitistism that led to Federation ships not using Phase Cloaks or even armor. Stuff like this is why 30 billion people died in the Dominion War. Way to get my cackles up. Great video as always. Oh and, the form factor would naturally be inferior to a regular ship because it has to fit on another ship so there's going to have to be compromises. I can't not think of reasons why a captain's yacht doesn't make sense. But hey, maybe this is how people think in a post scarcity society.

Shuttles and runabouts don't need to be aerodynamic thanks to variable geometry shields. The aeroshuttle idea is dumb.

So the Enterprise D Captain’s Yacht follows the D.E.N.N.I.S systems?

Anything bigger then a ent c should have captains yatch

2021😂 damn you are more stubborn than me. well i didnt even have a cell phone untill about 2012 and it was a flip phone.

Does anyone know what ship this is at 15:58?

I'll post the ever unoriginal take, but man, i whish we saw in voyager (and the prow of the defient for that matter).

I want the sovereign one , i8 tok long time to cave to phone technology ( and it ws the battery in the end]

great video. lame concept. just use the shuttlecraft

The Captain's place is on the bridge not on the yacht