As well as offering budding builders the chance to have their LEGO creations become buyable sets, LEGO Ideas has also branched out to craft smaller promotional sets. In recent years these have included a Space Rocket Ride and a Vintage Car. The latest set to join the LEGO Ideas GWP line-up is the Sailboat Adventure. Back in 2020, LEGO fans were tasked with creating a set that was inspired by the holidays themed for a LEGO Ideas Contest. The original project was created by Fan Builder yc_solo and can be obtained by spending £200/$200/200€ on any LEGO products. I’ve finally built mine so here’s a short review of the Sailboat Adventure LEGO Ideas GWP.
Promotion Details
Free Set: 40487 | Pieces: 330 | Spend Limit: £200/$200/200€ | Duration: August 1st – August 25th
The set includes two buildable elements – the Sailboat and a pair of dolphins. Forgoing the palm tree island of the original submission. The body of the Sailboat is quite small but has some great little details. I particularly like how the cabin has been done, which gives the appearance of the boat having a below-deck area. The colour scheme is quite muted but this plays well the luxurious nature of a yacht or sailboat. The use of a pair of flexible golden tube elements to create boat’s railings are a nice touch although the elements added to them at the bow of the boat are a little tricky to get firmly in place.
The other buildable element is a small circular plate, with a pair of jumping dolphins. This is only the second set they have appeared in. One is mounted on a couple of transparent stands so they are nicely placed against each other. The use of crystal elements to add as splashes of water look great and various clear elements add even more texture to the water. A similar base has been added to the boat, which gives it some stability and the appearance of splashes with the ocean waters.
There are two Minifigures included in the set, they are mostly made up of previously used Minifigures parts, with the male’s torso being exclusive to this set.
When comparing the set to the original fan designed submission, very little has been changed, a few elements are in different colours and little details have been removed or added. The biggest omission is the small palm tree island. But this allows the main focus to be on the Sailboat. It’s an impressive little set that could quite easily be sold as opposed to being a GWP. And that’s the main issue with the set, the spend threshold is very high, an issue which is becoming more apparent with GWPs. The fact that nearly two weeks since the promotion launched, stock is still available could mean one of two things – the production run for the set was extremely higher than some previous GWPs or the spend limit is too high.
The set is also proof that the LEGO Ideas platform could gather ideas for smaller sets, maybe limited by a certain piece count and release them as retail sets alongside the larger releases.
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