The Battle of Bluecoat Bay

Since buying the complete range of Pirates sets released last year, I’d wanted to set them up in a way that would tie them all in together, and over the last few weeks, I’ve been working on it! I finished it last night, and I’m extremely happy with it. It’s currently sitting on a shelf just above my PC in the office/LEGO room.

The Battle of Bluecoat Bay incorporates nearly every set released last year under the Pirates theme. So far, I’ve included (with some modifications so they would fit):

The only one that’s missing is 40158: Pirates Chess Set, and while I do own it, I haven’t built it yet, and it won’t fit on the shelf!

It’s interesting that it looks very different to what I had in mind originally. The first idea was to have the two Bluecoat buildings switched around, but I realised that I didn’t have enough plates to blend in the beach, where the two baseplate colours join, so I modified the bases of the sets to incorporate a large deck. The waterfall, Bluecoat Bay Falls was very much an experiment, which I was quite happy with, although don’t look at the back! The addition of that made it much easier to add some more water to flow underneath the outpost.

After having to thin out the boats, I realised I needed at least one in there, but I needed something exciting to go with it. As per usual, my best MOC ideas come at around 1am, while I’m attempting to sleep. My brain said to me “You need a whale’s tail…”. As soon as I woke up, I did some research, and came across this one by Marc Reid. It was perfect! I was missing a few parts, so I modified it slightly, added some supports behind the boat, positioned the pirates, and I was done! I’m extremely happy with this part – it’s my favourite section, and came together within a few hours.

I’ve also got to give credit to JDHinten for his awesome swimming pirate. I loved it so much, I needed to add it in, and it was perfect for this small section of Bluecoat Bay.

Last of all was the main attraction – a pirate ship! My brilliant wife bought me The Brick Bounty for my birthday last year, and I was over the moon! It took me over 30 years, but I finally got my LEGO pirate ship. We built it last night (expect a review in the coming weeks), added a few extra pirates, and positioned her in.

I’d love to take credit for the firing cannon, but I can’t. For the life of me though, I can’t remember who’s image I found on Flickr that had it! Whoever you are, you’re a genius.

One final mention – after growing up with the LEGO pirates, I couldn’t create a Pirates MOC without including a couple of Pirates Islanders from my childhood. I scored a couple in a bulk lot about a year ago, and I was rapt! I’ve got a few in my childhood collection, but that’s all at my parent’s place, and they aren’t giving it up any time soon! It’s a small nod to my childhood LEGO adventures. There’s another islander in the setup – check out the album on Flickr and see if you can find him!

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