Easy Printable Pirate Ship Playset

The old family.disney.com website (later known as "Spoonful") had lots of great papercraft projects parents could do with children. But alas, the Spoonful website shut down in 2014. One of the Spoonful projects I liked, was this easy printable pirate ship. The playset included a 3D ship, cannons, and some 2D pirate figures (including a few skeleton crew members!) An archived copy of the playset's PDF template (along with instructions) may be found at this: download link. Besides paper, what else is required to build this ship are some drinking straws to hold the sails to the masts.

Other Spoonful Paper Projects:

Princess Paper Dolls
18" Jack Skellington Figure
3D Nemo Papercraft
Wonderland Easter Diorama
Teardrop Mickey

Disneyland Pirate Ship Paper Model

Once upon a time, there was a full size pirate ship at Disneyland in California. Although built to look like a ship, it was actually a restaurant building that didn't float at all. Through meticulous effort, Robert Nava has created out of paper a scale model of the restaurant ship. The Printable PDF template for the model may be download at Robert's website, The Disney Experience. Extensive instructions are included. The Disneyland ship fed thousands of happy people from 1955 until 1983, when it was demolished.

Other Papercraft Ships:

17th Century Warship
Bismarck Battleship
Easy Mayflower
Pop-up Galleon
Tall Ship Educational Papercraft

One Piece Blackbeard Pirates Ship

As you may know, the One Piece anime is all about pirates. In the earlier episodes of the show, the group known as the Blackbeard Pirates makes use of a ship that appears to be a simple raft. Upon closer inspection however, it can be seen that the "raft" is built of redwood sized logs that have been hollowed out. Gun ports line every side. This papercraft likeness of the ship was created by GoPaper. The PNG format template may be found at this download link. Sorry folks, no instructions for this model! It should be easy enough to figure out, though, if you reference the photos while you build.

Other Papercraft Ships:

Easy Mayflower
Captain Hook Ship Diorama
Zelda Wind Waker Ship Origami
Realistic Spanish Galleon
17th Century Warship

Galleon and Pirate Ship Paper Models

These two sailing ship papercraft were created by the Atocha Treasure Company. On the left is the Spanish galleon Nuetstra Senora De Atocha which sank in a hurricane off the coast of Florida in 1622. Modern treasure hunters were able to locate the wreckage and salvage the Atocha's treasure in 1985. On the right is a generic model of a buccaneer pirate ship from the same time period as the Atocha. A low-res sample template for the galleon is posted here while a low-res sample template for the pirate ship is posted here. Pre-printed, high resolution templates may be ordered from the ATC for a price. 

UPDATE 3/1/2015: Pre-printed hi-res templates are no longer offered by ATC. In fact, the ATC paper model website no longer exists. The links to the low-res versions now point to alternate locations where images of the templates have been preserved.

Pesky Pirate Paper Toy

The full name of this pirate paper toy is "Pesky Pete Pascoe the Pirate of Penzance". Pete is the work of UK illustrator Trystan Mitchell. I really like Trystan's clean "cartoony" style. This paper toy is not quite all paper as the legs are made out of pencils or wood dowels, but an inventive papercrafter should have no problem rigging up small tubes of paper that will work just as well. The two page template for the pesky pirate is located here.