[DISCUSSION] The typical Lego pirate ship

[Quotenotto]

Hello!

I would like to start this topic to discuss the typical structure of pirate ships designed by Lego and compare them to historical ships. I have drawn a quick sketch, it represents the biggest, usually two-mastet pirate-faction playset.

Being sets designed to play with, they do have their limitations in design and accuracy, but some of the earlier ships capture the essence of actual ones quite well.

It is however hard to put them into a fitting historical frame. The original Black Seas Barracuda fits in somewhere in the late 17th and maybe early 18th century. In my opinion, its silhouette resembles actual ships of that timeframe closer than any other lego ship. Here is an example of an actual ship from the early 18th century for comparison (althoug it is rigged with only one mast):

The Black Seas Barracuda has a similar hull shape and its stem and beakhead try to imitate actual ones with the limited possibilitys of a playset from that era. You can clearly see the inspiration for this model were actual ships. Subsequent models, especially those after the original theme look more like stylized versions of the Black Seas Barracuda rather than actual ships. They lose key features like the beak and the aftercastle develops more into some sort of cabin like on some modern cargo ships.

Developing ship mocs is a difficult task, due to the many curves a ship has and the huge amount of details in their designs and there are a lot of sources for inspiration. There is a huge variety of different historic ships and a lot of fantasy designs aswell. Creating a moc is a personal task and everybody should always do what feels right for them, Lego is a toy to express creativity and not just something to recreate reality. That said, I personally like to draw inspiration for my mocs from real examples. For ships, that isn't as trivial as one would think, because there are many inaccurate examples from pop-culture, just google "pirate ship". A good place to start for actual ships is with model ships, as they are usually build with actual plans from that era, like the examples on this website:

 

https://www.modelships.de/

Some key features for a typical "pirate" ship (2-3 masts, square-rigged, late 17th - early 18th century) I try to incorporate are as follows:

• A proper beakhead with curved rails and a fitting stem, the bowsprit isn't connected to the stem and angles upwards (smaller ships can have a bowsprit that is fixed on the stem and no beakhead), optionally with a spritsail
• A small raised section on the bow (forecastle), but not to pronounced
• A continous gundeck
• The foremast is a little shorter, the main mast (2nd mast) is not to near towards the rear (somewhere between the middle and last third of the ship)
• The quarterdeck should not be to short, usually it would start behind the main mast, ideally the ships sides start to raise here aswell towards the stern
• The captains cabin should not be to high, it can have side pockets, side pockets are usually connected to the rear mirror (but not always)
• The most ornate parts of the ship should be its beakhead and rear mirror

What are your thoughts on this subject, what do you think about Legos designs and what are design features and philosophies you try to adhere to?

Edited October 27, 2023 by Quotenotto

[Yperio_Bricks]

9 minutes ago, Quotenotto said:

Hello!

I would like to start this topic to discuss the typical structure of pirate ships designed by Lego and compare them to historical ships. I have drawn a quick sketch, it represents the biggest, usually two-mastet pirate-faction playset.

Please check your links, they all lead to the very same picture you posted above.

[Dreamweb]

This is all a very interesting insight, and it kind of confirms what I have been claiming for a long time: LEGO is trying too much to make most of their ships resemble their first one.

Anyway, your topic seems like perfect timing to me, as I'm currently working on a ship which I'm trying to make a bit more realistic compared to my previous MOCs, and the website which you have mentioned is a great source of useful images (actually I think I might have stumbled across that site a few times already).

Edited October 31, 2023 by Dreamweb

[thewatchman]

2 hours ago, Dreamweb said:

This is all a very interesting insight, and it kind of confirms what I have been claiming for a long time: LEGO is trying too much to make most of their ships resemble their first one.

Anyway, your topic seems like perfect timing to me, as I'm currently working on a ship which I'm trying to make a bit more realistic compared to my previous MOCs, and the website which you have mentioned is a great source of useful images (actually I think I might have stumbled across that site a few times already).

I really agree with this also. 
 A lot of them seem like varying remakes of the barracuda.

 I absolutely love the new ship design in the modular sense, and how “cartoonish” it looks. I can always appreciate the larger scale Mocs with full rigging and brick built hulls to look more “real” but that kinda kills a lot of what I love about my toy plastic boats 🤣

[Elephant Knight]

I have come to the same conclusion. Would be really nice to see Lego make a new pirate ship that was actually based on a real ship, not just rehashing the Barracuda. It's why I still consider the Barracuda to be one of the best, if not THE best Lego Pirate ship.

 

EKnight

[TheCosmicTravelers]

One of the things I dislike most about many LEGO ships (and plenty of MOCs) is that pronounced aftercastle.  If not designed properly, it can look like an unaerodynamic box was just plopped onto the stern.  On real sailing ships with elevated sterncastles (post-middle ages), there was usually a gradual increase in elevation, with a partially elevated quarterdeck (containing the ships' wheel) between the lower main deck and the fully elevated poop deck.  Placing the ship's wheel on this intermediate height deck could also fix another issue I have with many official LEGO ships - placing the ship's wheel on the high poop deck often results in the mainsail blocking the forwards view of the helmsman!

While the multiple decks are often dispensed with for simplicity, well designed LEGO ships may attempt to hide the abrupt increase in deck height by adding something along the sides to mimic this gradual increase (I think the original 6285 Barracuda does a much better job at this compared to 10210 Imperial Flagship).  Alternately, the stern deck may only be partially elevated (i.e., less than a minifig's height) or not elevated at all (as seen in the clean lines of a frigate).  I imagine partially elevated stern decks may not be very popular with designers due to the difficulties in also having a pleasant minifig-accessible stern cabin underneath (though enclosed decks were often rather cramped in real life and may have had hatches that necessitated ducking to pass through).

[Third Navigator]

This was very interesting post for me.

If there were a subject called Lego ship's structure theory, your writing would be on a first page.

For ship moc builders, Compared with real ships, most noticeable problem of lego ship is, he too high stern cabin. But, It's clear that such structure is good for playing.  So we can hide it with some ways. I always think the set 6286 shows those 'hide' well.

1. high f'cle deck: It also allows us to add more playable space, like cabin for crew.

2. apropriage usage of rim: quarterdeck doesn't really exist but from the side it looks like it does.

There are other ways. We can lower the stern by not using stern big baseplate, or inserting cabin inside the baseplate. then we can save the hight of 2~3bricks which could have been higher.