We Build LEGO The Endurance, A 3-Masted Tribute to Antarctic Discovery

This model of The Endurance is LEGO at its most serious and austere. There are no minifigures, no self-referential bits of whimsy. It’s all masts, sails, riggings, and ship’s boats, depicted without a hint of irony. But that actually works in its favor – the end result looks realistic and classy. This is a centerpiece that would look at home on a coffee table, or on a side table in the corner of a dining room. This is a set that would mix well with polite company.

It’s the latest in LEGO’s promotion of itself as a lifestyle and a just a brand for kids, but also for adults. These sets incorporate themselves into a room’s aesthetic, as artwork on the walls, flowers and plants on window sills, or as scaled replicas of famous landmarks or artifacts on a shelf or small table. The Endurance is a beautiful set that would dominate and add sophistication to any living space. Just make sure you have the 2.5 feet to display it, and the room aesthetics to give it its proper stage and presentation.

The LEGO Endurance comes in 28 numbered bags – the number of bags matches the number of crewmen who worked on the real-life ship. You start by building the boat itself, from bow to stern. You build it in three bulk sections, which fasten together via drop-down pins. Building the boat is a methodical process by which you first build the center ‘spine’ of the boat and then attach pieces horizontally to create the boat’s curves and swells. The pieces interlock and slide past one another in a satisfying manner – a credit to the designers’ consistent precision and forethought.

The boat comes together quickly – both because the process is engaging and because the bricks in this particular stage are large, chunky, and cover a lot of surface area. But the above cabins, rope ladders, and riggings constitute a much slower process, best done in smaller increments. The sails, for example, are loosely sewn into the riggings and reminded me of the basting stitch I learned in my middle school’s Home Economics class.

As always, the fussiness of the detail matches the impressiveness of the cumulative effect: the railings on the deck, the portholes on the cabins, the minimalist personal details within the quarters, the anchor attached to a long chain. The decorative elements on the stern and bow. The rudder that pivots when you turn the steering wheel. The spool that you wind the riggings around, so you can manually loosen and tighten them. The spool is actually placed below deck; the decks at the aft of the ship are removable, to allow access to the ship’s steam engine.

One interesting eccentricity of this set is that you build a temporary, larger stand to support the model during the building process. But by the end of the process, the build is self-reinforcing, and you can take away this additional support. The final model rests upon a small brown stand, colored to give the impression of wood.

The real-life Endurance was famous for its role during the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, an international effort to map and explore the seventh continent. In 1914, Anglo-Irish explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton led The Endurance and a crew of 27 men on what was originally planned to be the first of its type: a Trans-Antarctic expedition across the entire continent. At the time of its first voyage, the Endurance was one of the strongest ships ever built, with a hull designed and reinforced to withstand icy waters.

However, The Endurance was trapped in pack ice before making landfall, and it sank into the Weddell Sea after being irretrievably damaged by the accompanying pressure. The crew abandoned the ship and made their way in three ship’s boats to Elephant Island, and from there, six of the men took a single ship’s boat on an 800 mile voyage to reach help. When Shackleton reached South Georgia, he immediately began organizing to rescue the rest of the crew. Three voyages were attempted and then aborted, but the fourth was successful.

In the end, all 28 crew members survived the ordeal. The story of the Endurance is one of human resilience and persistence against the elements and seemingly insurmountable odds. And in 2022, a search team discovered the wreck of the Endurance over a century after it sank, which renewed interest in the ship and its story.

Prior to writing this review, I did some research; I knew of The Endurance, but I did not know the intricacies and improbabilities of its history. One could enjoy this LEGO build without knowing the ins and outs. But it sure helps. If you’d like to learn more about the ship, its voyage, and its subsequent rediscovery, there’s a National Geographic documentary titled “Endurance,” that’s streaming on Disney+. And if you’re giving this set to someone else as a holiday gift, you should point them in the right direction, so they get their maximum enjoyment out of this experience.

LEGO The Endurance, Set #10335, retails for $269.99, and it is composed of 3,011 pieces. It is available exclusively at the LEGO Store.

Kevin Wong is a contributing freelancer for IGN, specializing in LEGO. He’s also been published in Complex, Engadget, Gamespot, Kotaku, and more. Follow him on Twitter at @kevinjameswong.