RockyMountainNavy Jr. gifted me the boardgame Sail (Akiyama Koryo, Kozu Yusei; Allplay, 2023) for Father’s Day 2026. Sail is a cooperative trick-taking game with a nautical theme. Each round the two players (and there can only be two) must play tricks of cards of a matching suit (color) which—depending on the symbols on the cards—moves the ship towards the goal with occasional damage by the Kraken…
…and that’s about it for the summary of the game.
Oh, there is (just a little bit) more but the playing of tricks is the core game element of Sail. The sawtooth board is interesting with its diamond arrangement of spaces. That means the ship (rarely) moves directly ahead but instead zigs and zags towards the player that won the trick. At the beginning of the game, each player selects a Pirate that has a special ability. The goal is to get to the end without death-by-Kraken.
What I have not said about Sail is perhaps the most important rule: no talking, even like a Pirate. As written in the rules, “Players are free to talk between rounds, but may not communicate from the time the [player] cards are dealt until after the final trick of the round is played” (p. 2). So not only must players collaborate to sail the ship—with the least damage possible—but do so without talking.
Many people praise Sail and it was nominated for several awards. As simple and highly praised as Sail is, however, I found the rulebook a bit lacking. In a very succinct rulebook there was no succinct explanation of the Pirate abilities, forcing me to sail over to the BoardGameGeek forums to discover those treasured rules buried there.
Beyond one small rules storm that I eventually weathered, Sail is a fine, if a bit tricky, racing game. At 20 minutes playing time for a game it certainly does not out sail its welcome.
[To avoid the sensitivities of certain boardgamers, no Kraken were harmed in the writing of this review.]
Feature image “Ships Riding on the Seine at Rouen” by Claude Monet 1872/1872 (National Gallery of Art display, photo by RMN)
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