Windrose Ship Guide: All Vessels, Stats, and Best Variants
Fleet progression in Windrose comes down to hull size, and picking the wrong variant means redoing the grind later.
Three ship classes exist, each split into three variants, and the game doesn't make picking the right one obvious. I sank a stupid amount of copper into a Ketch build that made no sense before the cannon slot math actually clicked. Getting the aiming and positioning basics down first matters more than which hull is under the wheel, but the hull still decides what that positioning can actually accomplish.
The Ketch
Completing the "Need a Bigger Boat" questline unlocks the Ketch and its three variants once a Wharf exists.
The Stock Ketch is the right call here, and the Blackbeard variant's heavier cannon option doesn't change that math. Its health pool sits low enough to make it fragile, and the Brigantine upgrade comes fast enough that sinking mid-game resources into arming a Ketch that's getting replaced soon anyway just isn't worth it.
Building any Ketch variant costs 150 Wood, 40 Coarse Fabric, 30 Rope, and 100 Nails, and that Nail count means a decent amount of copper smelting before the hull's even seaworthy.
The Brigantine
Naval combat actually starts feeling like naval combat once a Brigantine's involved. Unlike the Ketch, this one isn't a quest reward, the blueprints get bought from the Brethren of the Coast at the Tortuga market for 1,000 Piastre, and they won't sell until Reputation Level 2 is cleared with the faction first.
Here the math flips. The Blackbeard Brigantine gives up health, but 22 Knots is fast enough to dodge fire that a slower hull would just eat, and six 24-pounders instead of six 12s changes what this ship can actually do to an enemy in a single volley. Lower health stops being the deciding factor once speed and firepower both move in the same direction.
Building one runs 200 Wooden Planks, 120 Coarse Fabric, 40 Linen Fabric, 40 Rope, 40 Timber, 80 Copper Ingots, 200 Nails, and 30 Shipwright's Tools, the last of which costs another 300 Piastre from the Brethren vendor on top of the blueprint price.
The Frigate
The Frigate sits at the top of what's currently available, and getting there costs more than materials alone. Same vendor, same faction, but the blueprint runs 3,000 Piastre and demands Reputation Level 4, a genuinely long grind compared to the Brigantine's requirements.
Blackbeard wins again, and by a wider margin than either previous tier. 110,000 health still holds up fine under sustained fire even without the Brethren variant's extra padding, and twelve 36-pounders is enough raw output that a clean broadside on an unprepared target ends the fight before it really starts.
Reputation and Piastre are the actual bottleneck across all three tiers, the materials are just the toll for showing up with enough of both.
