TL;DR

• To add ships to Kenway’s Fleet, board an enemy vessel and choose “Send to Kenway’s Fleet” when the crew surrenders.
• Kenway’s Fleet unlocks after completing This Old Cove in Sequence 4.
• You start with 3 fleet slots — expand by paying Reales or upgrading buildings at Great Inagua.
• You can hold up to 12 ships once fully expanded.
• There are four ship types: Schooner, Brig, Frigate, and Man o’ War — each needed for different missions.
• Capture forts to unlock new fleet mission regions across the Caribbean map.

How to Add More Ships to Your Fleet in Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced

Adding more ships to your fleet in Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced is how you build the passive income engine that funds the rest of your playthrough. Kenway’s Fleet is a fully integrated system in Resynced — no companion app needed — and every ship you capture at sea can be sent on timed missions that bring back Reales, crafting materials, and rare collectibles. This guide covers exactly how to board and recruit ships, what types you need, how to expand your fleet capacity, and how to get the most out of every mission you send your crew on.

You can grab the game on PlayStation Store, Xbox, Steam, or the Epic Games Store.

When Does Kenway’s Fleet Unlock?

Kenway’s Fleet unlocks after you complete the Sequence 4 main story mission This Old Cove. This is the mission where you take control of Great Inagua for the first time. Once it is done, you get access to the Fleet Planning table inside the Great Inagua manor, and also a second Fleet Planning table inside the captain’s quarters on the Jackdaw itself.

From that point, any enemy ship you successfully board and defeat can be added to your fleet. You do not need to wait for any other unlock — just board a ship and the option is there.

If you are still working through the early game, our beginner tips guide covers the most important things to prioritise before Sequence 4.

How to Board and Capture a Ship

Every ship capture follows the same process. Here is exactly how it works step by step.

Step 1 — Weaken the Ship With Cannon Fire

Approach the enemy ship and open fire with your Jackdaw’s cannons. Your goal is to damage its hull enough to trigger the boarding prompt — you do not want to sink it. Watch the ship’s health bar carefully and hold back once it gets low. Switch to lighter fire or ram the ship if you are worried about accidentally destroying it.

Use your Spyglass before engaging to check the ship type. This saves time if you are specifically hunting for a Frigate or Man o’ War to fill a gap in your fleet.

Step 2 — Initiate the Boarding Action

Once the ship’s hull is depleted, sail close enough to trigger the boarding prompt and press the button to swing across. You will land on the enemy deck with your crew and the on-foot fight begins. Reduce the enemy crew’s morale to zero by fighting soldiers and eliminating officers.

Your crew will help during this phase, so let them engage and use them as a distraction to pick off captains and brutes. Use your Flintlock Pistols if you are surrounded. If there are powder kegs on deck, shoot them to take out groups of enemies quickly.

Step 3 — Choose “Send to Kenway’s Fleet”

When the enemy crew surrenders and morale hits zero, you are given a list of choices for what to do with the ship. The options are:

• Send to Kenway’s Fleet — adds the ship to your fleet roster
• Repair the Jackdaw — uses the ship’s materials to fix your hull
• Lower Wanted Level — reduces your current notoriety
• Captain’s Lockbox — takes extra Reales from larger ships like Frigates and Man o’ Wars

Select Send to Kenway’s Fleet and the ship joins your roster immediately. That is the whole process.

Our ship upgrade and customisation guide covers how to keep the Jackdaw strong enough to handle the tougher ship types you will want for your fleet later in the game.

All Ship Types and Where to Find Them

There are four ship classes in AC Black Flag Resynced. Each one is needed for a different type of fleet mission, so you want at least one of each in your roster.

Schooner

Schooners are the most common ships on the map and appear in every region, especially in the northern easy-difficulty areas like Dry Tortuga and Gibara. They are small, fast, and easy to board. You will capture one almost by accident early in the game. In Kenway’s Fleet, Schooners are best used for Trade missions, which generate a steady stream of Reales and trade goods.

Brig

Brigs are medium-sized ships recognisable by the ram on the front of their hull. They are a step up from Schooners in terms of toughness and most commonly appear in easy and medium-difficulty regions like Gibara and Cruz. Brigs are the most valuable ship type for Piracy missions in Kenway’s Fleet because those missions give a chance to earn Art Pieces — collectibles needed for the Great Inagua Manor and tied to the Dilettante trophy. If you are going for completion, capture and run as many Brigs as possible.

Frigate

Frigates are larger and tougher than Brigs and most commonly appear in the hard-difficulty southern regions. They are often escorted by smaller ships that will aggro on you the moment you engage the Frigate, so deal with the escorts first. In the fleet, Frigates are used for Warehouse missions. These are less of a priority than Piracy missions but are still worth running if you have a Frigate spare.

Man o’ War

Man o’ Wars are the largest and most dangerous ships in the game. They appear in hard-difficulty southern regions like Charlotte, Serranilla, and Chinchorro. You need a heavily upgraded Jackdaw before you can reliably board one. In the fleet, Man o’ Wars are sent on Patrol missions, which lower the Risk Level in a region and reduce how much damage your other ships take on missions there. Once you have a few Brigs running, prioritise adding a Man o’ War to keep Risk under control.

For a full breakdown of all the fort locations that unlock the regions where Frigates and Man o’ Wars appear most often, see our complete guide to capturing all forts in AC Black Flag Resynced.

How to Expand Your Fleet Capacity

You start with only 3 fleet slots, which fills up fast once you get going. You can expand this to a maximum of 10 slots through two methods.

Pay Reales for Extra Berths

Additional berth slots can be purchased for 5,000 Reales each. This is the most straightforward method but it adds up quickly. Make sure you have a decent Reales income running before buying multiple slots — sending Schooners on Trade missions is the fastest way to build that income up passively.

Upgrade Great Inagua Buildings

The second method is upgrading the dock buildings at Great Inagua using crafting materials. As you invest in the shipyard and dock structures, additional fleet slots unlock as part of those upgrades. This method is slower but costs fewer Reales. Our crafting guide explains what materials you need and how to farm them efficiently.

The most efficient fleet size once fully expanded is nine active ships with one slot kept open. That spare slot means you can always capture a high-value ship you spot at sea without having to stop and salvage something first.

How to Access the Fleet Planning Table

There are two ways to access fleet missions:

• Great Inagua manor — go to the large planning table in the main room of the mansion on Great Inagua island.
• Jackdaw captain’s quarters — enter the room just below the main deck of the Jackdaw and interact with the planning table inside. You can access this at any time when you are not at the helm.

The fleet map shows all available missions marked as silver pieces on the board. Each mission shows which ship type is required, what the reward is, and how much damage the ship may take during the mission. Pick missions where the ship you send has more health than the maximum damage it could suffer — this guarantees it cannot sink even with the worst possible outcome.

How to Unlock More Fleet Mission Regions

When you first open the Fleet Planning table, most of the map will be locked. The tooltip tells you exactly why: you need to capture forts. Every fort you take in the Caribbean unlocks that region’s mission slots on the fleet map.

Without forts, your fleet has nowhere to operate. Even if you have a full roster of ten ships, they cannot be sent anywhere until the corresponding region is open. This is why capturing forts early pays off so heavily — every fort you take directly expands the passive income your fleet can generate.

Start with the three easy One Skull forts in Dry Tortuga, Eleuthera, and Gibara. These open up the northern regions of the fleet map and let you start running Trade and Piracy missions almost immediately after unlocking Kenway’s Fleet in Sequence 4.

Managing Fleet Risk Level

Each region on the fleet map has a Risk Level shown by a skull meter in the bottom right corner of the fleet screen. The higher the Risk, the more damage your ships can take per mission. At very high Risk, the potential damage exceeds the health of most ships, which means they could be destroyed.

To lower Risk in a region, send a Man o’ War on a Patrol mission in that area. Once the patrol completes, Risk drops. This is why having at least one Man o’ War in your fleet is so important for the mid and late game — without it, damage on southern region missions becomes unmanageable.

Tips for Building the Best Fleet

• Prioritise Brigs first. Brig Piracy missions are the only source of Art Pieces for the Great Inagua Manor. Capture at least five Brigs and keep them running constantly if you are going for full completion.
• Mix Brigs and Schooners for passive income. Brigs bring in Art Pieces and Reales from Piracy missions, Schooners generate steady Reales from Trade missions. Run five of each once you have enough slots.
• Recruit from southern hard-difficulty regions when possible. Ships captured in high-difficulty zones have better base stats, which means they handle mission damage better than the same class captured up north.
• Salvage duplicates. If you are sitting on three Schooners but need a Frigate, salvage one Schooner to open the slot. There is no shortage of Schooners at sea.
• Repair before re-deploying. Ships come back from missions with damage. Repair them before sending them out again — a ship at low health going into a high-Risk mission could be lost entirely.
• Make a manual save before collecting mission reports. Mission rewards include a random element. If a Brig mission does not offer an Art Piece, reload and collect the report again to reroll the reward pool.

For a full view of how the fleet system fits into the broader completion picture, our how long to beat guide breaks down total time investment for 100% completion. And if you want to move between islands faster while managing your fleet, our fast travel guide covers how to unlock and use every fast travel point in the game.

What Rewards Does Kenway’s Fleet Give You?

The rewards from fleet missions stack up significantly over a full playthrough:

• Spanish Reales — the core currency you need for Jackdaw upgrades, weapons, and expanding the fleet itself
• Crafting materials — wood, metal, cloth, and trade goods like sugar and rum that feed into upgrades
• Art Pieces — collectibles required to fill the Great Inagua Manor decoration slots for the Dilettante trophy
• Rare item spawns — some missions trigger activity spawns on the open world map like burning ships and special events
• Yellowed Map Pieces — exclusively from Schooner Trade missions and used to restore a special treasure map from the Treasure Dealer at Great Inagua

If you are actively working on treasure map content alongside your fleet, our treasure map locations guide, Blackbeard Treasure Map guide, and Havana Scarecrows Treasure guide are all worth bookmarking.

Kenway’s Fleet and Trophies / Achievements

The Collective Madness trophy and achievement requires you to send at least one ship of each class — Schooner, Brig, Frigate, and Man o’ War — to Kenway’s Fleet. This is a natural result of playing through the fleet system properly, but it is worth keeping in mind so you do not accidentally salvage one of the required classes before the trophy pops.

The Dilettante trophy, which requires filling all art collection slots in Great Inagua Manor, is tied almost entirely to Brig Piracy missions. This is the most time-consuming fleet requirement so starting it as early as possible is strongly recommended.

For all the other trophies and achievements linked to the broader game, our Owned Trophy / Achievement guide is a good starting point for players working toward full completion from the early game. Our complete missions guide covers every quest you need to tick off alongside fleet management.

Frequently Asked Questions