Notes: Below is my personal review of the Lego sailing ship models in chronological order. They are judged with a typologist's (ship type) approach. Also keep in mind that it was the state navies that always had the larger ships, while pirates sailed smaller ships because they were practical, cheap, and fast enough to sail away from state navy ships. Despite thier names, none of these ships could ever come close to a schooner.

Black Seas Barricuda (1989): This ship is not actually devised from any realistic rig. The hull is well designed with much detail. I have two of these, one made after many conversions into a 26 gun frigate, another converted into a simple large merchant ship.

Caribbean Clipper (1989): Another ship without a realistic rig. The '89 ships both lacked a fore-and-aft sail save thier jibs, so would not tack well. This ship I found was an eyesore and so the middle section went to my 26 gun frigate and the bow and stern became a Nomesian Cutter.

Imperial Flagship (1992): This ship, a sloop, is well designed and overall an excellent Imperial vessel. It can remain as is for realism purposes.

Imperial Trading Ship (1992): This seems to be the internet community's favorite. It is the smallest ship, and comes with the Imperial Trading Post. It is sloop rigged and overall fine in terms of realism.

Skull's Eye Schooner (1993): My personal favorite. This large galleon rigged ship (though galleons did not have jibs) sports a four gun broadside giving the model a great advantage over others. The design was excellent, although my model lost a midsection to my frigate. It is now a very realistic galleon with high fore and aft castles and a proper rig including a sprit sail.

Renegade Runner (1993): Another triumph for Lego. This fore-and-aft sloop is actually a prime example of a real pirate ship's rig.

Red Beard Runner (1996): Probably the second most hated ship Lego has come up with. It has battle damage features that just serve to weaken the foremast and quarterdeck. Its rig is something of a brig, though for square sails each mast only sports one. The presence of a small gaff sail on the main mast gives it this rig, but relative to other ships this one would be much too big for a brig rig. I suggest adding a course sail below the large square sails.

Armada Flagship (1996): I have 2 of these. They were combined together to become a 3-masted xebec. This is not to say it was not a nice model. If you move the mainmast to amidships and add a foremast with a single square sail, you get a caravel. The model itself is nice, and the rig just needs that extra sail to be realistic.

Cross Bone Clipper (1997): Everyone's most hated ship. This hulk with a single square sail is more like a cog, a ship used some 600 years before the golden age of piracy and extinct by 1450. There is little way to salvage this vessel. Scrap it and use the mast on other ships. You can use the hull for another.

My ships are all as close to realistic as one can get with Lego. I have 14 ships, ranging from a massive frigate to a small lugger, as well as some special gun boats.

Frigate: Made from a BSB, this ship has 2 center-sections added and the length over all exceeds 1.2 meters. It has 16 guns on the lower gun deck, 4 carronades on the main deck, and 6 culverin guns on the rails. It is ship rigged with a lateen mizzen. The gun deck is completely covered.

Galleon: Made from an SES, it is slightly smaller due to the removal of a centre section. It sports the same rig as the frigate, using red sails and a spritsail from the medieval dragon boat. I added a nice forecastle too. This ship can now mount six guns.

Merchantman: I took a BSB and moved the jib to a mizzen mast, thus ship rigged. Everything else looks the same.

Dreadnought: More my friend's design than mine, it uses two square sails from the Armada Flagship and a lateen mizzen. It also mounts 8 oars to assist in propulsion.

Xebec: My favorite ship type and best model, I formed this ship from two Armada Flagships. It has three lateen masts with rake on the fore and mizzen, as well as the overhang on the bow and stern. It sports 4 guns, but can carry 6.

Armed Sloop: Basically my take on the Imperial Flagship. It has the same rig, only with black and white sails. I was able to mount a full 4 guns by raising the base to match the edge of the hull and moving the carriages over that.

Nomesian (Turkish) Cutter: This is my most odd ship, but a similar rig did exist. Modeled after a Turkish cutter, this ship has a square-rigged mast with a gaff-lateen sail. That is, a triangular sail supported by a gaff eminating from the mainmast. It has no bowsprit unlike the real thing, and thus no jibs. This was due to limitations in the amount of sails and masts I had. The hull is composed of the leftovers of a CC, ie no center section.

Ketch: A small ship with just a small bow and stern set. It has two masts: the mainmast amidships is square rigged, and the mizzen is lateen. There is a jib too, so it looks very much like a real ketch.

Sloop: A simple sloop rig with a square course. There is nothing really defining about this ship.

Cutter: A fore-and-aft ship of the same size as my ketch and sloop.

Cruizer: A very small ship of size similar to the Imperial Trading Post ship. It has two masts with triangular Bermuda sails, or boomsails, with jibs and staysails. It mounts a single cannon between the masts.

Yacht: Using the same sails as the ITP ship, I built a replacement.

Fishing Smack: A small ship with a single mast sporting a Bermuda sail and a jib. The rig would look like a modern yacht.

Lugger: A very small ship with two sails that are usually found on Lego boats.

Gun Boat: A boat with a boat's sail and four culverin guns. Supplemented by oars.

Dran Habour Sentry: A boat with two windsurfer masts and sails, although I used the sails from the Ninja castle which are part of the gliders. It has an overhang at the stern, and includes jib and staysail of the same type on the masts. It is armed with a single seige mortar, made from a black barrel.

See Sailing Ships Archive for a lesson in typology