So we got Black Seas Barracuda remade recently, when's this puppy getting a second run*?

*(or third, in this case)

Is the back of the boat just collapsing or exploding or something? That doesn't seem very sea-worthy.

The box art makes it look like he just got poked in the face by the ship!

I remember this being least favorite ship as a kid. I think the sail configuration always through me off. But sure wish I had one now…

Ahh, my pirate ship! For a while there, a pair of these was all my friend and I played with, lots of fun.

@Zordboy said:
"Is the back of the boat just collapsing or exploding or something? That doesn't seem very sea-worthy."

Yes! It has a play feature where you pull out two pins and then the whole back flips down and the deck flies off. Kinda fun, but it means no interior in that part of the ship.

Oh yeah, I own this release. In fact it's up on the shelf w the Pirates of Barracuda Bay too.

I don't like the color scheme too much, but it does include an original monkey and Redbeard. I thought the design was totally different with the 'battle damage' features. It has numerous functions and features, whether it was the collapsing mast, holey sails, or the previously mentioned deck. The brick-built skull on the back of the ship was quite clever.

I could never understand why they remade this. Of all the sets to pick from, this was a very strange choice.

@Cooliocdawg said:
"The box art makes it look like he just got poked in the face by the ship!"

So that's why Redbeard has an eyepatch! To be fair, of all the reasons one could lose an eye, this one's certainly one of the coolest.

Love this ship's design btw. It might not be the most historically accurate, but it looks like such a fun playset. It's also the one I grew up on seeing in catalogs.

Technically this is the Legends rerelease. A shame those didn't kick off. It was before the purge of parts from 2004 so it was the last possible time they could feasonably release one again. And now it's not in any way attainable for a reasonable price anymore.

No ship would have this sail configuration, except under extreme duress. Under optimal conditions, you fly full sail to maximize your speed. As the weather turns inclement, you would start by striking the upper sails, followed by reefing and then striking the lower sails. If you leave only the upper sails, the wind puts more stress on your mast, and your ship acts more like a pendulum, but the smaller sail size means you’ll move slower through the water.

This set is designed with a stern that explodes and a mast that collapses (see?), and the remaining sails are in tatters. Clearly it is on the losing end of a head-to-head fight with a better armed and captained vessel.

@MCLegoboy:
Quint, for one.

On a more serious note, an estimated 11,000 sharks are killed by humans not annually, not monthly, not weekly, and not daily, but every hour. Most are “finned” and thrown back in the water to die of asphyxiation, as almost every species of shark needs to swim forward to force water through their gills (that I’m aware of, only nurse sharks have been discovered to use water currents in underwater cave systems to achieve the same result while remaining stationary, and I don’t know of any shark species that have been observed gulping water or air bubbles as some bony fish do).

And of course there are some who fish sharks purely for sport, on rare occasion a specific shark is hunted by authorities following a string of potentially related shark attacks, probably more frequently authorities hunt some random shark following provably unrelated shark attacks, and I once heard of an initiative in Australia to find ways to utilize as much of the shark as possible, so when it’s done legally it’s not also done wastefully.

I was wondering when @PurpleDave would come in with obscure trivia.

I think we forget that even back then, sets could have below average piece-to-price ratios.

Dang Star Wars tax, markin' up your dang Star Wars pirate ships.

@GSR_MataNui said:
"So we got Black Seas Barracuda remade recently, when's this puppy getting a second run*?

*(or third, in this case)"

I designed a remake and have the instructions up on Rebrickable! I'm quite proud of it:) search Red Beard Runner remake, made by curtydc. I used the new Barracuda as a template and went from there.

It kind of saddens me that people find this ship ugly. It's not supposed to be historically accurate! It's a playset first and foremost! And it's clearly in the midst of a losing naval battle, which is a novel concept never explored before or since this set!

@sir_vasco said:
"I think we forget that even back then, sets could have below average piece-to-price ratios.

Dang Star Wars tax, markin' up your dang Star Wars pirate ships."

Ehm, did you perhaps notice those GIANT hull parts? And sails. And masts. And riggings. Those aren't worth the same as a small 1x1 plate you know?
I understand what you're trying to say, but those Star Wars ships often don't only have a bad price per part ratio (which is a bad measure without context), but also just a bad overall 'price per volume of stuff' ratio as Jangbricks would call it. 80 euro or something for a tiny spaceship made of tiny parts that would be 55 if it was Ninjago or something is a fair criticism.
And yes, there's no real 'Star Wars tax' because licensing costs are spread out over set waves. But overpriced sets do happen! A lot! (Just look at the Trash Compactor, for instance).

If anything, I think stuff like Star Wars tends to be less well-designed (economic parts usage) because 1) it's often on holiday deadlines if it's a tie-in, 2) because it's a recreation Lego gets carried away on the detail and size, driving up the part count unnecessarily for what it actually is compared to in-house creations, 3) because of new molds for minifigs or crucial shapes, often with a real markup, 4) because they just don't have play features or functions in mind as often because it's a recreation of an existing thing already and 5) because... well. They cán charge more. Especially if it has desirable minifigs.
It's always been that way. Stuff like the Galaxy Squad theme was a better value to 2013 Star Wars because they did more with the parts and knew they couldn't sell some oversized grey geometric shape. So stuff was multifunctional with vehicles in vehicles, hidden weapns etc. It still failed because people went for the more familiar SW anyway. The same was the case for any year when there was something to directly compare it to.

Its a cruel joke to call Redbeard a runner.

@PurpleDave said:
"No ship would have this sail configuration, except under extreme duress. Under optimal conditions, you fly full sail to maximize your speed. As the weather turns inclement, you would start by striking the upper sails, followed by reefing and then striking the lower sails. If you leave only the upper sails, the wind puts more stress on your mast, and your ship acts more like a pendulum, but the smaller sail size means you’ll move slower through the water."

No, there are many situations to run under topsails only. Maximum speed was not always an advantage, as arriving last to an engagement often gave the advantage of being to the windward side of your opponent.

A good breeze which would drive the ship too quickly under courses would merit sailing under only topsails. If the breeze is steady, the ship heels, but won't roll with the pendulum effect.

In a heavy sea, since they are lowest down, the mainsails can lose the wind each time the ship pitches into a trough between waves, because the waves block the wind. This means the wind keeps coming off and then back onto the sails, which creates the greatest roll or pitch, and places the masts under greater strain than having a higher sail constantly in the wind.

Finally, the topsails are smaller, which balances out the greater roll or pitch they exert through being higher up.

This box art is quite dark for LEGO: the destruction of Redbeard's ship and the pirate captain's fall into the sea. It's unclear what is the cause of the aft explosion. The ship may be in a battle against an unseen foe, but why would the crew be away from manning the cannons and instead forcing one of their own to walk the plank? Because they are not in a battle; this is a mutiny. The crew planted explosives. They are forcing one of Redbeard's loyalists to walk the plank. The guy in the rowboat is getting ready to catch and keelhaul the Captain to death. The mutineers will then use the rowboat to escape to the island in the background because there is no way to steer what's left of the ship. This mutiny is why the illustrated large Redbeard is looking at the vision of his future with such horror!

Mutiny or not, this seems to be the end for Redbeard. It is fitting that the "classic" run of the pirates theme was discontinued in the late '90s after the original version of the ship released. LEGO figured you can't have pirates without Redbeard, just like Disney can't have Potc without Jack Sp-- wait.

Interestingly, Mania Magazine had (almost) the entire crew named:

Captain Red Beard (obvious I hope :D)
Black Jack Hawkins (Gray Beard, Blue Vest, also appeared named in Lego Racers 1)
Tattoo McGoo (Anchor Tattoo, black bandana)
Jake the Snake Blake (tattered shirt, normally used by Captain Ironhook, hook hand, tricorne)
Gonzo Goldbar (Eyepatch, stubbles and stripy shirt)
Parma Sean LaFeet (anchor tattoo, red bandana)

Unfortunately this leaves the green vest pirate entirely unnamed, unless someone mixed up the names in the magazine... Anyways it's weird to leave just one character out, so I guess there was at least an internal name for him.

@Binnekamp:
Jangbricks’ “price per stuff” is a highly subjective metric that gets trotted out whenever someone points out that the price per piece is actually below $0.10 in response to endless Chicken Little comments about the mythical “Star Wars tax”. The trash compacter has six minifigs, including two unique with new and expanded prints, and a mix of characters that’s never been sold for less than $100. Of the three dioramas, 75339 is the only one that costs more than $0.10/pc at $0.112/pc. Still not outrageously expensive. But people complained about all three being way overpriced. 75329 is only $0.09/pc, and 75330 is a measly $0.08/pc. “Oh, but I don’t _want_ those parts!” Then don’t buy it. Say you’re not buying it because you don’t like the set. Don’t say it’s too expensive because they used parts you don’t like. Parts is parts is parts. It takes the same amount of labor to produce a part you don’t like as it does one that you’ll freak out over.

Comparing SW to Galaxy Squad, look at the original 1999 SW lineup. People thought they were great when the theme launched, but as time went on, we looked back with critical eyes, and compared them to newer sets, and determined that it’s possible to make them look much more accurate to the films. And that’s what was demanded going forward. Even when they seemed to get it right, someone eventually comes along and does it better. Sometimes making a huge leap in accuracy is met with negative reactions because we’ve become convinced that the previous version is accurately scaled, when it’s demonstrably not. Play functions took a back seat because they often wrecked the aesthetics of the model.

Galaxy Squad has nothing to match visually. All the designs are 100% original, or loosely inspired by something they don’t need to perfectly recreate. The models also tended to be bloated with the largest Technic fairings at the time, like when a frilled lizard or a pufferfish is trying to scare off a predator. Take the fairings off and the models shrink quite a bit in size because there was nothing built underneath them to fill out the shape. They were just there to cheaply inflate the size of the model.

76832 is another one that got unfairly attacked for having an “IP tax”, when it only costs $0.101/pc, and has an incredibly complex design that was very fun to build. It has been my observation, though, that how much someone likes the design of a set often carries more weight than any objective metric in determining whether a set is overpriced or not. If their first reaction is to wonder why that set is released, it’s an uphill battle to convince them that it’s not overpriced. If it’s the most amazing thing they’ve seen, price becomes less of an issue.

75342, on the other hand, fails the ten-cent metric. It’s $0.153/pc, and compared to 75280 which also has four minifigs, two battle droids, and 23 more pieces for 25% lower price, there’s nothing about the set itself that seems to warrant that price bump. But the 501st, at $0.105, got blasted for being “too expensive” because people wanted it to be a little battle pack that would allow them to amass a huge 501st contingent at the lowest possible price. They wanted the minifigs but not the models, or they complained about the terrible scaling of the models (both of which are oversized, but challenging to make look good in a more accurate scale, and moreso when you need approval from the Design Department to release as an official set). Comparing the two, the 187th looks bigger, and by the “stuff” metric, would seem to warrant a higher price. Do you see anyone defending the price on that basis?