It’s been almost thirty years since the Classic Pirates were released, so I decided I had to help bring them back. This set was for my dad, for myself and for all the other boys and girls who grew up playing pirates.

I started where the story left off in 1989, with Captain Redbeard and his crew, stranded mid-adventure. That’s when I remembered the sequence from a classic pirate film, where the crew happen upon an island made from shipwrecks. I started to experiment with that idea, scaling the concept down and adding in details such as plants, animals, hidden traps and spaces, and bountiful treasures.

The project took me one very sleepless week to design and another to create it digitally. In the end, it was made up of around 2,650 individual pieces. After I had submitted the work to the LEGO® Ideas platform, I was overwhelmed by the avalanche of support I received. Within 25 days, I hit the big 10,000.

My hope for this set is that it helps to create a new generation of ‘little pirates.’
I hope it starts a new era of boys and girls who get as much joy from the adventures of Redbeard as I did.