The Cousteau was a Federation captain's yacht that was in service with Starfleet in the late 24th century, attached to USS Enterprise-E. Cousteau was a large auxiliary craft which normally docked on the ventral side of the saucer section, opposite the bridge, and immediately below the saucer torpedo launcher. When connected to the Enterprise, only the bottom side of the yacht was exposed to space; the top of the craft was concealed by the Enterprise and the warp nacelles were folded against the hull. Upon launch, the Cousteau nacelles folded downward and the entire ship dropped away from the Enterprise.
The Cousteau contained a cockpit (with a dedication plaque), a small transporter and cargo area, and a docking port which made a direct connection to the Enterprise-E. It was capable of atmospheric flight and landing on a planetary surface. It could also generate tachyon bursts. Only one pilot was needed to fly the craft.
In 2375, Captain Jean-Luc Picard and his senior staff took the Cousteau to the Ba'ku planet as part of a plan to prevent the forced relocation of the Ba'ku by the Son'a. The yacht carried several weapons and transport inhibitors to the surface, which were deployed by the crew in order to keep the Son'a from removing the Ba'ku from the planet. Later, Data used the Cousteau to create a diversion by firing tachyon bursts into Ru'afo's ship's shields, forcing him to reset his shield harmonics and allowing Worf to transport the bridge crew to the Federation holoship. Ru'afo was able to seriously damage the Cousteau before he was transported from his ship. (Star Trek: Insurrection)
Template:Enterprise-EShuttles
Appendices
See also
Background information
The Cousteau was designed by John Eaves and named after esteemed 20th century oceanographer Jacques Cousteau. A Type 15 shuttlepod from the USS Aries and a Type 7 shuttlecraft from the USS Enterprise-D were also named Cousteau.
A deleted scene established that the Cousteau disintegrated in the atmosphere of the Ba'ku planet shortly after Data's attack. The yacht was not shown attached to the Enterprise-E at the end of the film, so it was possible the yacht was destroyed.
Star Trek: Starship Spotter classified the Cousteau as a Mark 2 Captain's Yacht.
Studio model
Though an embedded auxiliary craft, known as a "Captain's Yacht", was already envisioned by Andrew Probert when he designed the Galaxy-class studio model, it was, due to various reasons, never shown in the Star Trek: The Next Generation television shows. However, the final draft of 12 March 1998 of the script for Star Trek: Insurrection explicitly called for an appearance of this kind of craft, at first in scene 255, [1] and a fully realized vessel and deployment sequence of this kind was finally developed for this occasion.
Design
Eaves' design
Eaves' orthographic views
The design of the captain's yacht fell to Illustrator John Eaves, who commented, "Luckily, I had to design only the top of the captain's yacht, because the bottom of it had already been established on the Enterprise itself; there is even a separation line on the miniature studio model. The yacht is a diplomatic cruising vessel that's docked out for touring. It's almost 110 feet long, so it's a pretty big ship." (The Secrets of Star Trek: Insurrection, p. 39) Elaborating he has stated, "It was more of an accident that the shape of the yacht worked out really well, based on that shape down there [on the saucer]. What was good is that the torpedo launcher on the bottom of the Enterprise has a real nice cut line on it. We never thought of it at the time, but it worked out really well as the separation line for the yacht. So, with a few little line changes, we had the bottom of the yacht down. We had the separation from the line of the torpedo launcher right in the middle of that little tower section, and we could separate the yacht and still have that launcher as part of the ship. I kind of made it a touring vehicle–it's meant to be a very luxurious vehicle. We designed it after a real yacht, so it really has a ship look to it." (Star Trek: The Magazine Volume 1, Issue 4, p. 29) Eaves originally had his design with a recessed windshield, allowing it to dock snugly right behind the Enterprise's protruding torpedo launchers. Yet, as the new ship was in the process of being translated into CGI, the producers hit upon the notion that it would be more aesthetically pleasing to smooth out the front area into the rounded surface as seen, raising the question, according to Eaves (who faithfully complied), "How do they park this thing?" (The Secrets of Star Trek: Insurrection, p. 43)