LEGO Icons 40729 Shackleton’s Lifeboat gift-with-purchase review

LEGO Icons 40729 Shackleton’s Lifeboat is the perfect companion gift-with-purchase for 10335 The Endurance.

LEGO Icons 10335 The Endurance launches on November 29 (Black Friday 2024) priced at £229.99 / $269.99 / €269.99 and LEGO.com or LEGO Store purchases from that date through to December 2 will receive a free copy of 40729 Shackleton’s Lifeboat, while stocks last.

Coming in at 232 pieces and including two minifigures, this minifigure-scale lifeboat is a perfect tie-in LEGO set for the bigger model, not only for the detail and quality of the model at play, but for how it picks up where 10335 The Endurance left off in telling the remarkable story of Sir Ernest Shackleton and his crew. 

After several months surviving the conditions and hoping that the ice sheet that the Endurance had become lodged in would shift and free the ship, only to see the ice move in the wrong direction and claim the ship for the bottom of the sea, Shackleton and his crew had no choice but to take to the ship’s three lifeboats and sail miles and miles across the ocean in search of rescue. 

They reached Elephant Island before Shackleton realised that he needed to sail on a further 800 miles to South Georgia island. He and a small crew of five undertook the journey in one of the lifeboats (named James Caird) and were successful in reaching their destination and then returning months later to Elephant Island to rescue every member of the Endurance’s crew.

So, to put this into a LEGO gift-with-purchase set works perfectly as a companion piece for a larger set based on the Endurance – the entire story is nicely represented, whilst the build itself for 40729 Shackleton’s Lifeboat is detailed and accurate, with a few nods to the crew’s life in the Antarctic with various supplies, tools for digging through the ice, and the recently-invented video camera.

Perhaps the only things missing from the set are a couple of beard pieces to reflect how unrecognisable Shackleton and his crew first were when they reached civilisation again. Otherwise, this captures so much about the source material to be quite excellent for anyone who manages to pick one up.

LEGO Icons 40729 Shackleton’s Lifeboat is available from November 29 to December 2, while stocks last, awarded with purchases of 10335 The Endurance at LEGO Stores or LEGO.com.

This product was provided by the LEGO Group for review purposes.

Support the work that Brick Fanatics does by purchasing your LEGO via one of our affiliate links. Thank you.