Frank's LEGO® Pirate Ships Page
See my LEGO® Pirate Links page for general pirate links.
See my LEGO® Pirate Gaming page for gaming links and discussion.
See my Pirate Gaming at Brickfest 2000 page for a report on the Pirate Game I ran at Brickfest 2000.
See my LEGO® Pirate Creations page for my own creations.
There are so many pirate sites out there, it is sometimes hard to know where to start. Here are some of the most impressive sites for sources of inspiration for ships:
See Care and Feeding of Your Collection for ideas on cleaning your LEGO bricks and sails.
Dan Vogel's listings of peoples fleets.
Discussions often arise about which ship is best, so here are my thoughts:
6285 and 6286 are the only two ships which the ratlines/stays really attach to the hull correctly.
6271 and 6280 at least get credit for having the ratlines/stays looking halfway reasonable. These ships are also nice examples of a medium/small ship.
The small ship from 6277 is a real nice little ship. It is a real shame this was only available in this set. A real cool set would have been a set with three of these in different colors with different sails.
6274 would be #3 if it had proper ratlines/stays.
6268 is an ok small ship, but does need some work.
6289 has too many bizarre action features, and ratlines/stays which attach way to high up, or not at all (the foremast ratlines/stays don't attach to allow the mast to fall over).
I rate 6493 Flying Time Vessel above 6250 because it at least has ratlines/stays and has a neat bow/figurehead arrangement.
I have placed 6261 Raft Raiders on the list because it has a pirate sail which can be used in making cutters. It's also the best looking raft. Note that 6057 Sea Serpent has the same sail with a red dragon on it for another cutter sail.
6250 is a narrow bow and stern with a mast and a few bricks stuck on top. See this picture for a comparison of 6250 with a ship I built using the same hull parts.
This section was inspired by this Lugnet thread. See Bruce Schlickbernd's post for his reasonings (lots of good thoughts). More discussion on the relative merits of 6285 and 6286.
This is a listing of all the pirate sets with rafts or boats and comments on them:
The following sets have usefull parts for pirate fans and may be reasonably available. The links link to the Pause page for that set. Sets with boat bricks specify the color plates used for the bottom of the ship, and include the special shaped plates to match the boat bricks.
Notes on various themes:
The specific sets.
| brown 16-wide bow: | 6285 (1), 6274 (1) |
| brown 16-wide center: | 6285 (3), 6274 (1), 6286 (3) |
| brown 16-wide stern: | 6285 (1), 6274 (1) |
| brown 16-wide bow, red deck: | 6286 (1) |
| brown 16-wide stern, red deck: | 6286 (1) |
| red 16-wide bow, dark grey deck: | 6289 (1) |
| red 16-wide center: | 6289 (2) |
| red 16-wide stern, dark grey deck: | 6289 (1) |
| brown 12-wide bow, dark grey deck: | 6268 (1), 6271 (1) |
| brown 12-wide center: | 6271 (1) |
| brown 12-wide stern, dark grey deck: | 6268 (1), 6271 (1) |
| white 12-wide bow, blue deck: | 6280 (1) |
| white 12-wide center: | 6280 (1) |
| white 12-wide stern, blue deck: | 6280 (1) |
| black 12-wide bow, green deck: | 6250 (1) |
| black 12-wide stern, green deck: | 6250 (1) |
| dark grey 12-wide bow, black deck: | 6493 (1) |
| dark grey 12-wide stern, black deck: | 6493 (1) |
You can see pictures of these on Heather Patey's Base Plate Finder.
| Short Rigging (brown): | 6037 (2), 6261 (2), 6271 (2), 6280 (2), 6289 (2) |
| Short Rigging (black): | 3313 (1), 5988 (4) |
| Long Rigging (brown): | 6270 (2), 6273 (2), 6274 (1), 6285 (4), 6286 (4), 6289 (2) |
| Ship's Wheel (brown): | 3683 (1?), 4178 (3!), 6441 (1), |
| Ship's Wheel (other colors): | 3633 (1 color?), 3673 (1 red) |
| Anchor (black): | 6441 (1), 6557 (1), 6560 (2) |
| Anchor (other colors): | 5956 (1 dark grey), 7161 (1 blue) |
| 6 wide Boat Hull Brick: | 5935 (2 white), 5955 (2 light grey), 5956 (4 black), 6277 (1 white, 1 black), 6441 (2 white), 6557 (2 white), 6558 (1 white, 1 blue), 7141 (2 light grey), 1354 (1 green), 5955 (2 light grey), 5935 (1 white), 6540 (2 black), 6679 (2 black), 6057 (4 black), 6483 (2 black), 3050 (1 tan) |
| 6 wide Boat Deck: | 6441 (1 white), 6558 (1 white) |
| 6 wide Boat Plate: | 5935 (4 black), 5955 (2 light grey), 5956 (2 black), 6271 (1 white), 6441 (1 blue), 6558 (1 blue), 7141 (2 light grey), 6557 (1 red, 1 white) |
| 10 wide Boat Hull Brick: | 5975 (2 light grey, 1 white), 5976 (2 black), 6560 (2 white) |
| 10 wide Boat Deck: | 5976 (1 black), 6560 (1 blue) |
| 10 wide Boat Plate: | 5976 (1 black), 6560 (1 blue) |
| 4x4 Mast Base: | 5976 (1), 6250 (1), 6268 (1), 6274 (1), 6280 (2), 6286 (1) |
| 4x4 Tall mast Base: | 6270 (1), 6274 (1), 6285 (2), 6286 (2) |
| Thick Mast Bottom Section: | 6270 (1), 6274 (1), 6280 (1) |
| Thin Mast Top Section: | 5976 (1), 6250 (1), 6268 (1), 6274 (2), 6280 (1), 6285 (3), 6286 (4), 6289 (2) |
| 6x6 Octagonal Plate w/Clips: | |
| Large Bowsprit: | 6280 (2), 6289 (1) |
| Small Mast (rowboats etc): | 6256 (1), 6261 (1), 6262 (1), 6267 (1), 6277 (1), 6278 (2), 6558 (1 red), 6559 (1 blue) |
| Short Yard for small mast: | 6256 (1), 6262 (1), 6267 (1), 6277 (1), 6278 (2), 6558 (1 red), 6559 (1 blue) |
| Long Yard for small mast: | 6250 (1), 6256 (1), 6278 (1), 6441 (1) |
There are several other consturction block lines which feature ships which may be useable.
Best-Lock produces a line of several pirate ships. These ships are in current production, and can even be ordered from this site:
Best-Lock's web site is: Here is my review of one of these ships:This is a Chinese clone brand. Several pirate ships were released. These look amazingly like the LEGO ships in a lot of ways. One interesting feature is that all the hull sections are split two. This allows for more variation in width of ships. It looks like these ships may still be available, but finding them is difficult.
The Mega Bloks line includes a viking longship. This set is now out of production, but has been found as recently as April 2000 or so in KB Toys stores. Here is my review:
Background image © Copyright 1996-1999 by Todd Lehman, used with persmission. See:
Fibblesnork Backgrounds for all
the available images and terms and conditions of use.
Comments to ffilz@mindspring.com
© Copyright 1999 Frank Filz. All Rights Reserved.
Page last updated November 2, 1999