Tag Archives: Ship

Seaspan Canadian Polar Icebreaker | Picture Special

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This incredible creation is the Seaspan Canadian Polar Icebreaker, a 150,000-piece commission for Canada’s new $multi-billion icebreaker programme currently under construction in Vancouver.

Created by Paul Hetherington (aka Brickbaron) and certified LEGO Professional Robin Sather, this enormous brick-built colossus replicates the real Seaspan Canadian Icebreaker due to go into operation from 2030.

Measuring 2ft wide and 11ft long, and taking 520 hours to construct alone (not including design and planning), Paul and Robin’s creation recreates every detail of the real ship in mini-figure form, including the bridge, heli-deck, lifeboats, engine room, cabins and more, with Seaspan’s engineers themselves part of the design process.

Split into six sections, Paul and Robin’s astounding creation not only mirrors the design of the real ship, but also reflects its crucial job, with the model set amongst the ice and sea floor in which it will operate – with the brick-built ice doubling as support for the model’s cutaway design.

Now on display at Seaspan’s headquarters in North Vancouver, there’s lots (and lots) more to see of this spectacular ship at Paul’s photostream, where nearly twenty images of the build are available to view. Click the link above to head to Canada’s polar waters in a truly magnificent brick-built boat.

Having a Tug

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We’ve having a tug today, courtesy of regular bloggee Thirdwigg and this neat all-mechanical harbour tug boat. Rarely built in Technic form, Thirdwigg’s ship features ‘HOG’ steering and twin winch control via the cogs atop the pilot-house, and he’s released free building instructions too. Give your self a tug at both Flickr and Eurobricks, where full details and the instructional link can be found.

What Shall We Do With a Drunken Sailor?

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This is our kind of boat. Based on a painting by one of his favourite artists, Daniel Church has constructed the ‘Tug Pub’, which “sailed from town to town along the coastal lochs of Scotland serving spirits, beer, simple fare, and fantastic ambiance”. And defied Archimedes’ principle of water displacement.

There are actually a few boat-based pubs in the UK, some of which this TLCB Writer has frequented, thus Daniel’s whimsical build isn’t too far from a delightfully drunken reality. Order a pint or five on the water at Daniel’s photostream via the link!

We’ve Got Wind

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And so has Daniel Church. This is his ‘Wayward Wanderer’, a spectacular twin-sail concept yacht with a gorgeous curved jib formed of tessellating hexagons. The Wanderer’s beautiful brick-built hull is equally well crafted, with the only wonky element of the whole photo being the horizon. Point your bow towards it and set sail via the link above.

18th Century Idiocy

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The sailing boat is the 18th century equivalent of the Ford Mustang. At least it was in our home nation, where hundreds, if not thousands, were smashed into sand bars, rocks, each other…

Cue this excellent Imperial Ship by Flickr’s Brick Knight, which has just crashed into a rock probably whilst doing something reckless leaving a boat show.

Being the 18th century, the spectators can’t video it to put it on YouTube, but we’re sure the taverns will be filled with reenactments tonight.

There’s more of the historic idiocy to see at Brick’s photostream and you can join the scene of the accident via the link above.

The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau

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Naval officer, film maker, oceanographer, author, and Palme d’Or winner, Jacques-Yves Cousteau was surely one of the world’s last great adventurers.

And his legacy is one that is still felt every day in the marine biology and diving worlds, with Jacques accurately predicting that animals such a porpoises can echolocate, and inventing the first ever piece of SCUBA equipment – the Aqua-Lung – in the 1940s.

He is perhaps most famous for his oceanic mapping and discovery of numerous wrecks, with much of this work carried out on his American-built, wooden-hulled, ex-British World War 2 minesweeper the RV Calypso.

This stunning brick-built replica of Jacques’ iconic ship – which now languishes dismantled in Turkey – comes from previous bloggee Alex Jones aka Orion Pax, who has both constructed and presented it beautifully.

Measuring 50cm long Alex’s model is packed with details, and you can take a closer look at his recreation of one of the most important ships to ever sail via the link to his photostream above.

Big Catch

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An estimated 100 million sharks are killed by humans every single year. That’s three sharks a second. Three quarters of these are due to the shark fin trade for the Chinese market (who seem to be the world leaders in animal cruelty), where the fins are cut off the live shark and the rest discarded back into the ocean. And if that sounds horrible, it’s because it is.

The remainder are mostly accidental catches from fishing, but fishing can of course be done right. Cue NikiFilik‘s lovely cartoon-esque fishing boat vignette, with one of the most gorgeous brick-built hulls we’ve seen in ages – just look at that line of studs! Niki’s boat has caught one shark, and if it’s all being eaten we’re totally cool with that.

Fish responsibly at Niki’s photostream via the link above, or click here to learn more about how we can protect or oceans.

One Eyed Willy

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Snigger. And for once it’s not us being childish! We have Steven Spielberg to thank for the silliness, and his 1980s cinematic masterpiece ‘The Goonies’, in which a group of children set off in search of lost treasure to save their homes from demolition.

Captained by One Eyed Willy, ‘The Inferno’ lay at the end of a booby-trapped labyrinth, floating inside a cavern, and filled with loot.

Inspired by the movie, Stefan Eeckman (aka sebeus) has constructed this stupendous homage to One Eyed Willy’s vessel, with galleries, gun ports, rigging, and a marvellous nougat-coloured hull.

There’s more to see of ‘The Inferno’ at Stefan’s Flickr album of the same name, and you can grab your treasure map, dodge the falling boulders, pit of spikes, and collapsing bone-organ floor in search of pirate treasure via the link above.

Botlek Bricks

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We like bridges here at The Lego Car Blog, because… well, we’re a bit tragic. But tough – we’re the ones writing this nonsense, so now you have to like them too.

This is the Botlek Bridge, a vertical lifting bridge over the Oude Maas in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, with two spans each as large as a football field. Which it needs to allow Rotterdam’s enormous cargo ships to pass beneath it.

This brick-built microscale replica of the Botlek Bridge – complete with enormous cargo ship – comes from Flickr’s Bas van Houwelingen, and demonstrates the vertical lift mechanism in action. Previously on display at both LEGOLAND Billund and The LEGO House, you can now check it out at Bas’s photostream. Click the link above to sail underneath it.

The Crispy Peking Duck Please

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This beautiful creation is a goza bune, a type of pleasure ship owned by Japan’s rich and powerful officials during the Edo period of the Tokugawa shogunate, from the early 1600s to the late 1800s. But we all know about that.

This writer thought it looks rather like the giant ‘Jumbo’ floating Chinese restaurant that resided in Aberdeen Harbour, Hong Kong. He ordered the crispy Peking duck amongst many other things.

Which yes, does mean he’s conflated a 17th century Japanese ship with a barge-based restaurant from an entirely different culture built in the 1970s…

Anyway, with apologies to our Japanese readers, there’s more to see of this superbly detailed Chinese restu… Edo era goza bune courtesy of previous bloggee Markus Ronge, including the stunning detail within. Order your Chinese meal via the link above.

In Pursuit of Pirates

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We might be a car blog here at The, er… Lego Car Blog, but we do like ships too. Particularly piratical ones. Of course LEGO’s ‘Redcoat’ soldiers were not pirates, but they were armed to fight them, and Flickr’s Evancelt Lego has equipped his Redcoated mini-figures with this fantastic napoleonic galleon to do just that. A suite of brick-built cannons, a neat yellow hull, and a curious wake (considering the sails are furled) can all be found at his photostream – click the link above to don your red coat, and take to the seas in pursuit of pirates.

LEGO Icons 10335 The Endurance | Set Preview

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The LEGO Icons range has brought some spectacular real-world vehicles to the hands of LEGO fans. The Corvette, Countach, Camaro, Concorde, and many more besides have been recreated brilliantly in brick form to date, but we didn’t expect the next set in the Icons range to be a 1912 Norwegian three-masted schooner. And nor for it to be quite so wonderful. This is the LEGO Icons 10335 Endurance.

Now lying at the bottom of the Weddell Sea, the ‘Endurance’ carried Sir Ernest Shackleton and a crew of twenty-seven to the edge of Antarctica in 1915, where the ship became trapped in pack ice and was slowly crushed.

Neither Shackleton nor his crew were lost in the sinking, surviving an incredible feat of, well… endurance, to make it to Elephant Island in three of the ship’s small boats in April of 1916, before Shackleton braved the open ocean once again to reach South Georgia and raise a rescue party.

Recreating the ship at the heart of the amazing Antarctic survival story, the brand new 10335 set is constructed from over 3,000 pieces, includes ten sails and rigging, and an intricate multi-level deck with stairs, cabins, a steam engine, an operational rudder, and the Endurance’s four detachable lifeboats (three of which made that astonishing journey in 1916).

Costing £229.99 / €269.99/ $269.99, the new LEGO Icons 10335 The Endurance is certainly a set aimed at adult collectors rather than children or casual fans, but it just might be LEGO’s most beautifully executed replica yet. It reaches stores at the end of November 2024, some 108 years after the crew of the Endurance were finally rescued from a remote island in the Southern Ocean.

The Lego Ship Blog

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We’ve heard people call us a ‘ship’ blog before. At least, it sounded like ‘ship’…

Anyway, today we are a Lego ship blog, courtesy of BrickPerfection and this incredible privateer frigate ‘Fortuna’.

Constructed from around four thousand pieces, the ‘Fortuna’ measures over 80cm long, 62cm high, and is equipped with three triple-section masts, twenty canons, a pair of swivel guns, a working two-anchor capstan with a selector gearbox, and a gorgeous fully equipped and accessible interior.

Complete with a crew of twelve mini-figures, beautiful detailing is in rich abundance throughout the build, and you can help to make this phenomenal ship a purchasable set through Bricklink’s Designer Programme.

Full details on how to vote, further imagery, and a video of the ship’s features can be found at the Eurobricks discussion forum, and you can set sail on BrickPerfect’s perfectly-bricked ship via the link in the text above.

Scalawag Sloop

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Yarr! Today we be pirates, thanks to Captain Tom Skippy and his ‘Scalawag Sloop’! Though she be built from fewer than six-hundred pieces, her sails and hull be brick-built too, and you can board her at Port Eurobricks or Flickr Harbour before she sails for Barracuda Bay.

Soul of the Sea

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We hadn’t heard of Lauren Landers until today, but thanks to Brick.Ninja and this beautiful brick-built recreation of her ‘Soul de la Mar’ sailing yacht, this TLCB Writer has been able to conduct extensive research.

Balanced on just three studs above a coral reef, Brick has captured Lauren’s 1993 Beneteau Oceanis 510 in wonderful detail, including one of the neatest hulls we’ve seen yet.

There’s lots more of this fabulous build to see at Brick’s ‘Soul de la Mar’ album via the link above, and if you wish to conduct your own ‘research’ on the real life vessel (and the girl captaining it) you can take a look here. You’re welcome.