The partnership with Maersk is one of the oldest that the LEGO Group has in its portfolio. The announcement of 40955 Maersk Duel Fuel Container Vessel was greeted with excitement (back after 12 years), apprehension (will there be more or fewer stickers than the 133 seen in 2014’s 10241 Maersk Line Triple E) and disdain (It doesn’t look like they have brought Maersk Blue back.)

The LEGO group have sent over a copy of the set: Let’s take a closer look and see if those concerns should affect you.

The set is priced at $AUD249.99 / £139.99 / €149.99 / $USD149.99, has 1516 pieces and will be released on March 1, 2026.

The Box and Manual

We discussed in our announcement of this set that it celebrates the introduction of Duel Fuel Ships into the Maersk Fleet: being able to burn methanol or biofuel reduces the overall CO2 footprint of sailing this bohemoth across the oceans of the world. To date, nineteen Dual Fuel Vessels have entered the fleet. Ane Maersk, the ship represented here, arrived in 2024, and can carry 16,592 Twenty Foot Containers!

The box lid includes the obligatory warning about the ship’s inability to float in water. I don’t think this message could feel any less emotionally distant.

The manual provides some insights into the Ship itself, before embarking on a history of cargo ships – through the introduction of shipping containers in 1956, some facts about the Møller Family (the company owners) and the story of the white star that adorns their ships.

The set comes in a similar box as other sets of around this size, with a lift off lid, and can be collapsed to reduce space, if you so desire. It has a single construction manual, and includes 17 numbered bags, along with a soft plastic bag containing six 12×6 plates in dark red. There is also a single sticket sheet, with 14 numbered sticks (but a total of 17 individual stickers to place.

The Elements

The Knoller-in-Chief has again laid out the elements for us to consider.

Our first few bags are dedicated to the construction of the hull: lots of dark red plates, curved slopes and tiles, including the large curved slopes introduced years ago with the Porsche 911, but now existing in multiple colours. Of particular use is the 4×2 inverse curved slope, which sets up the base of the boat. There are plenty of 1×4 lattice fences: 66 all up.

For reasons I don’t fully appreciate, all of the medium azure elements have new element IDs. Most are not new designs, but this is the first time that the 2x2x65º wedge(slope 65) appears in medium azure (and it is medium azure – I’m waiting for some Maersk blue elements to arrive Real Soon Now – I’ll add in a comparison when I can). The ship bow appears to be the same as that seen in10241. Hidden here are a couple of printed 1x2x2 panels that, when placed side by side, spell out Maersk, with the star alongside.

A few Technic elements along the way will be sure to aid the ship in stabilising its 60cm length.

The next tras bring us plenty of light grey: thirty 4×6 panels, twenty five 2×10 plates, 35 2×6 plates, 32 1x2x5 bricks and 64 1x2x1 2/3 SNOT Bricks. But the highlight lies in the thirty two 2×6 and eleven 2×4 printed tiles – these tiles also give a scale of the containers and ship. There are two different 2×6 printed tiles.

We also see the white tiles that make up the cabin, including a compass tile and some fried eggs. We can’t have the crew getting hungry. There is also a white 4×6 panel, printed with windows and the wording ‘all the way to zero’ – which also appears throughout the sticker sheet.

Our final bag is full of black elements including plates, slopes and technic elements.

The Build.

We begin by building up the base of the hull: large plates joined by technic bricks. At this stage, its idrection can be anyone’s guess.

We then move to the stern of the ship, using the large curved slopes, which attaches upside down to the azure hull, using bars into technic bricks to effect stud reversal. I think this is a really clever way to get the curve of the stern inline with the hull proper. We know it’s the stern because we have the propeller in sight. But why is it staggered like that? I’m sure we will find out later.

We attach the stern to the main hull.

And then start work on the ship’s sandblue/grey/matt silver dual fuel engine. There are no moving parts.

We build up the walls of the hull in medium azure. On the starboard side, we have the printed ‘Maersk’ ID, while there is a row of windows, allowing you to see the engine on the port. We also add pull out gangways that can pull down towards any pier that the boat is docked at.

We add the bow of the ship: the base involves some clips and nifty SNOT techniques, to achieve the correct angle.

[Here’s a quick rewind from the finished build to provide a look at the bow in greater detail

Next, we add the supports for the container blocks, which includes deploying the fences. Rather than individual containers, we set up sub builds that would consist of dozens of containers in real life.

We then add the stern cabin which overhangs the propellor and add the rudder. We then fill in an extra container or two.

Time to build the main cabin at the bow of the vessel.: it is at a slightly different scale, but it permits the adding in of a bunk, head (IYKYN), wall map, compass, and a fried egg and cup of coffee for breakfast. This cabin gets enclosed with a printed panel, before we add in the upper level – the bridge of the ship.

And finally, we fill the ship up with containers.

And while the ship is complete, it’s quite a large model. So, we add in a display stand for it

There are some holes in the base of the ship to allow mounting on inverted round bricks, with a ‘boat’ plate on the end. One small problem, I went to remove the ship from the stand, and I lost the 2×2 inverted boat tile into the ship’s superstructure. So, we opened up the hull, and pulled it out…. The Stand looks like this:

Of course, this isn’t the full picture: it doesn’t give you the full scale of the vessel. Let’s see what lies underneath the waterline…

I don’t want to get into the Maersk Blue vs Medium Azur debate just yet, as I don’t have a sample of the former to compare it with. It is on the way. I shall update this post when it arrives.

Comparing capacity:

Comparing the final model here, with pictures in the manual of the Ane Maersk, I am impressed with the attention paid to the ship’s capacity. There are 22 rows of shipping containers on the container vessel, as seen in photographs in the manual, lying up to 22 containers wide. A shipping container measures 20’Lx8’Wx8’6″H. Pardon my use of imperial measurements – unfortunately, shipping containers work a little better that way.

So, how big are our shipping containers here?

• Containers are 20′ long, = 2 studs long (based on the printed tile).
• 3 containers stack into the space of 2 studs. This gives a vertical scale of 2 studs = 25.5′; 1stud = 12.75′
• The container modules measure 11studs + 4 plates = 12 studs and 1.5 plates=12 = 12.6 studs wide.
• so using the length scale for width: 12.6studs = 126feet (divide by 8 to get 15.75 containers across)
• using the height scale for width: 12.6 studsx12.75feet per stud = 20.1 containers across.

Ultimately, its pretty close, given the constraints of the system.

Both of these scales are in the ballpark for the 22 containers seen stacked side by side across the ship. Certainly within the margin of error for the full width of the ship. Either way, we can regard the 3 containers/2 studs x 2 studs to be a compromise scale to get as close to reality as possible, allowing printing to be clear, and reaching an appropriate integer measurement.

Storage

While your ship is built up, the box collapses to minimise storage space:

When you have finished displaying the ship, you can tuck it back into the box:

In Conclusion

Overall, this is a satisfying build. The hull comes together pretty quickly and easily, but the engine feels a little undersized – ultimately, this is fairly hidden, even allowing for the windows immediately outside. I did find some aspects quite repetitive – particularly the container blocks and setting up the fences on the hull. The overall build experience itself was broken up where possible. There is no doubt that the printed tiles are a major advantage over the 133 stickers for the containers and other details in the previous Maersk ship.

The major problem I found when handling the completed model was a tendency of the container ‘blocks’ to be easily dislodged and fall off: make sure you push them on firmly while you are putting the set together. To say nothing more about the issue I had with the stand, which was readily fixed.

It is an impressive display piece, and I quite enjoyed the realisation of what was happening as I assembled the bow cabin block. There was no mast to hide a coin at the base – disappointing, after the prominence it was given with the previous model. The set is aimed at builders aged 12 and up, which I think is reasonable, given the repetitive nature of the container builds.I am happy to give this set 3/5 arbitrary praise units.

Are you a fan of the Maersk LEGO Sets? Were you worried by the potential number of stickers – with that anxiety ebbing away now that it has been revealed that the containers are printed? Let us know in the comments below.

20994 LEGO Maersk Duel Fuel Container Vessel is priced at $AUD249.99 / £139.99 / €149.99 / $USD149.99, has 1516 pieces and will be released on March 1, 2026.

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Until Next Time,

Play Well!