A rust-covered crabbing vessel lurching between sectors, hauling in the crustacean gold that fuels half the city’s street cuisine. Red crabs, orange crabs—sometimes a glowing blue oddity with too many legs and questionable origins. Captain Jorgen Frahas and his crew specialize in them all. Doesn’t matter if they're dredging the murky sector waters, skimming open ocean, or cracking traps on a floating garbage island stitched together with plastic dreams and lost tech.

Frahas has been out there too long. His mates even longer. A few swear they can talk to the crabs now. Claim the crustaceans whisper market trends and lottery numbers. Sadly, no amount of crustacean clairvoyance has helped them win a single bout in the ship’s illegal crab-fighting ring.

Still, the crew runs tight. One bloke's got chrome peeling from his skull and eyes that blink out of sync with time. Creepy, but reliable. Together they keep Blue Bertha—as only Frahas insists on calling her—humming along. She groans, leaks, and devours sea life like it’s her only joy left.

"I was pointed to the spot by a few Sector 02 fishermen," says one wide-eyed newcomer. "Spent my life's savings... and then some. Sold a kidney, replaced it with a black-market synth. Honestly? Worth it. The crabs don’t lie—they only speak in credits."

Blue Bertha floats between ports, from slum-side sea walls to the glittering outskirts of the Inner City. Frahas has been delivering crabmeat to greasy ramen carts and ritzy Inner Sector dining lounges alike. Business is always booming… for those who survive.

Most crew jump aboard chasing quick credits. Few stick around. It takes a certain kind of madness—or loyalty—to stay. But Frahas’ core team? They’ve got rust in their blood, sea in their bones, and a sixth sense for where the tastiest crabs hide.

The inspiration for this project was inspired by two specific elements; the first (you can probably guess) is the Boat hull from the 2007 set 'City Harbor' that features set specific stickers running the length of it, and the second being a blue support column (part ID: 58827). The stickers on the hull of the boat are long past their prime and totally dried out and cracking, and for many projects, this is unfortunate, but New Hashima is not many projects, and this more derelict or aged LEGO elements add a uniquely beautiful level of grunge to the collaborative project.

Having the support column overhang with buoys while coated in rust is a fun way to add color to the design I imagined, and emphasizes that this isn't a clean and upstanding vessel, but rather one of reliability. The blending hues to show the blue has discolored to dark blue or dark turquoise shows a stained paint job, with rusty patches of medium nougat, dark orange, and reddish brown where the paint has peeled away entirely. Imagining that salt water has done a number on this ship with little to keep it clean pulls from cyberpunk's grungy aesthetic.

The busy deck space filled with catwalks, crabs, and cranes is something I wanted to capture. The focus being one large and functional crane while other smaller ones helped at different points for different reasons.

Inspired by a level luffing crane and functioning like one, the center crane has a much further grasp out and away from the ship's hull while also being to slide over the crab trough - Plenty of reach to dunk the crab bucket into the waters below. Currently the trough holds somewhere in the realm of 205 crabs, with capacity for another 400. That could be a lot of crabs, and majority of these were sourced from Bricklink or Pick-a-Brick online (I would consider this to be my silliest part investment, but then again for this project lots of crabs are crucial, so maybe not so silly afterall).

Revisting this build and adding lighting was a fun challenge - the game of how to run and hide wires while being connected to a singular power supply. Lit as if the actual lights within the ship were working, the sparse variety of light sources add a realistic level of detail and make for fun night scenes with this build.

After the smaller crabbing ship, the "Crabbing Trawler," sea vessels became another enjoyable instance for storytelling I found. Old Blue Bertha being no exception and larger than life chalked to the brim with crabs. This big girl has got loads of stories to share with even more crabs.