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The Pirate Captain
A rubber duck dressed as a pirate captain with a tiny tricorn hat, an eye patch, and a hook in place of one wing, a real Wild Republic bath toy sold directly on Amazon.
The Full Story
The Pirate Captain is, according to internal sales records, the single most re-ordered design in the company's history, which is a strange thing to be able to say with total confidence about a rubber duck with a hook for a wing. The concept dates back to a company trip in 1988, when a group of employees rented a boat for a team-building exercise that was, by all accounts, mismanaged from the start. Nobody had sailing experience. The boat briefly ran aground. One employee began speaking exclusively in pirate voice for the rest of the trip and refused to stop even after they returned to the office on Monday.
The design team, inspired equal parts by the incident and by a sincere love of tiny hats, produced the first prototype within the month. The hook went through several revisions before the current curve was settled on, after early versions were deemed either "not piratey enough" or, in the case of one prototype, "a genuine safety concern."
The eye patch is purely decorative. We have received a small but consistent volume of customer correspondence over the years asking whether it can be removed and worn by a human. It cannot. Please do not try. Legal has asked us to reiterate this point specifically.
Customer Reviews
My daughter named him within about four seconds of unboxing and he's had a full backstory ever since, involving a rival duck pirate who apparently stole his treasure. I don't ask questions anymore.
Nicely made for the price, the tricorn hat holds its shape well. Only ding is the hook felt a little loose out of the box, though it hasn't come off.
Handed these out as party favors for my son's 7th birthday and they were a bigger hit than the actual cake, which took me eleven hours to make. I have feelings about this.
Cute design but the black paint on the hat started flaking after about a week of normal handling. Might just be bad luck, but wanted to flag it.
I want to talk about the eye patch placement specifically, because I think it deserves recognition. It's angled ever so slightly, giving the duck a rakish, roguish quality a symmetrical patch simply would not achieve. I bought three.
As someone with a genuine interest in 18th century maritime history, the tricorn hat styling is closer to a costume shop approximation than an accurate period piece. I know it's a rubber duck. I still had thoughts.