Kenway’s Fleet Full Guide in Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced

TL;DR

• Kenway’s Fleet unlocks after completing This Old Cove in Sequence 4.
• There are four ship types: Schooner, Brig, Frigate, and Man-o-War — each locked to a specific mission type.
• Schooners run Trade missions for the most Reales. Brigs run Piracy missions and drop Art Pieces.
• Man-o-Wars run Patrol missions to lower the Risk Level so your other ships don’t sink.
• Capture forts to unlock new fleet regions across the Caribbean map.
• The Dilettante trophy requires 19 Art Pieces — only Brig Piracy missions drop them. Start farming early.
• Best setup: 4 Schooners, 4 Brigs, 2 Man-o-Wars, with one berth always kept free.

What Is Kenway’s Fleet in AC Black Flag Resynced

Kenway’s Fleet is your personal armada. It lets you send captured ships on timed background missions to earn Reales, crafting materials, and rare collectibles — all while you keep exploring the open world.

In the original Black Flag, this system was locked to a companion app that was later shut down. In Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced, it is fully built into the game. No app. No internet requirement. Everything runs through the fleet planning table inside the Captain’s Cabin on the Jackdaw, or at the table in the Great Inagua manor.

The old turn-based mini-game is also gone. You pick a mission, assign a ship, and wait for the timer to end. Simple. But managing it well takes planning.

If you are still early in the game and building resources, check our Metal and Wood farming guide to stock up before you start running fleet missions that require trade goods as entry costs.

How to Unlock Kenway’s Fleet

You unlock Kenway’s Fleet by completing the main story mission This Old Cove in Sequence 4. This is also the mission that unlocks your home base at Great Inagua for the first time.

Once you walk into the captain’s quarters at Great Inagua or open the cabin aboard the Jackdaw, the fleet planning table becomes active. From there you can view available missions, check your roster, and send ships out.

However, most of the Caribbean map is locked when you first open the fleet screen. Every mission region is tied to a specific naval fort. If you have not captured a fort, you cannot run missions in that area. Capturing forts is one of the most important things you can do to expand your fleet’s reach. Head to our forts guide and our guide on how to capture forts if you need help taking them down.

How to Capture Ships and Add Them to Your Fleet

You build your fleet by boarding enemy ships on the open sea. Here is how it works step by step.

Fire on an enemy ship with your cannons until its hull is low. Then sail close enough to trigger the boarding prompt. Swing across with your crew and fight the enemy sailors on deck. Your goal is to reduce their morale to zero by killing officers and soldiers.

When the enemy crew surrenders, you get a list of options:

• Send to Kenway’s Fleet — adds the ship to your roster
• Repair the Jackdaw — uses the enemy ship’s materials to fix your hull
• Lower Wanted Level — reduces your current notoriety
• Captain’s Lockbox — grants extra Reales, available only on Frigates and Man-o-Wars

Select Send to Kenway’s Fleet and the ship is added immediately. You can read more about this process in our guide on how to add ships to your fleet.

One important rule: Legendary Ships cannot be sent to Kenway’s Fleet. If you sink one, it is gone. If you defeat one, it sinks without giving you the option to board. Check our guide on how to beat all 6 Legendary Ships for those fights specifically.

How to Expand Your Fleet — Berths and Slots

You start with just 3 fleet slots. That is not enough to run a profitable operation. You need to expand your berths by upgrading buildings at Great Inagua and paying Reales to unlock each new slot.

The cost goes up with every new berth you purchase. Keep doing assassination contracts and looting chests to afford the upgrades. You can hold up to 10 ships at full expansion, though some sources cite up to 12 depending on specific upgrade paths.

The key rule: always leave one berth free. If your docks are completely full when you encounter a high-level three-star ship, you will be forced to salvage it instead of keeping it. That is a waste. Keep that slot open so you can always swap in a better ship when you find one.

All Four Ship Types Explained

Every ship class in Kenway’s Fleet is locked to a specific mission type. You need at least one of each to access all mission categories, and the Collective Madness trophy also requires you to send one of each class to the fleet.

Schooner — Trade Missions

Schooners are the smallest and most common ships on the map. You will find them everywhere, especially in northern easy-difficulty regions like Dry Tortuga and Gibara. They are quick to board early in the game.

In the fleet, Schooners run Trade missions. These convert your trade goods and materials into Reales, earning between 1,250 and 4,600 Reales per mission depending on the region’s difficulty. That is significantly more than selling goods at a General Store.

Schooner Trade missions also reward Yellowed Map Pieces, which are used to restore special treasure maps from the Treasure Dealer at Great Inagua. See our treasure map locations guide for more on that.

Brig — Piracy Missions

Brigs are medium-sized ships with a ram on the front of their hull. They appear in easy and medium-difficulty regions like Gibara and Cruz. They hit harder than Schooners and have more health, making them better for riskier routes.

Brigs run Piracy missions and are the single most important ship type for players going for full completion. Piracy missions have a random chance to reward Art Pieces — collectibles needed to fill the decoration slots in Great Inagua Manor. These are required for the Dilettante trophy and the Art Lover side quest with Bernard Woodhouse.

The Art Piece drop is random, so you need to run as many Brig Piracy missions as possible. More on that below.

Frigate — Warehouse Missions

Frigates are large, tough ships most commonly found in the harder southern regions. They are harder to board because they are often escorted by smaller ships that will attack you the moment you engage. Deal with the escorts first before focusing on the Frigate itself.

In the fleet, Frigates run Warehouse missions. These restock warehouses in their assigned region, letting you collect resources and Reales — but you need to physically visit and loot the warehouse to claim the reward. This makes Frigates the lowest-priority ship type. The payout is not automatic like Trade and Piracy missions. Use a Frigate if you have a spare slot, but do not build your fleet around them.

Man-o-War — Patrol Missions

Man-o-Wars are the largest ships in the game and the hardest to capture. They are found in the southern high-difficulty regions and usually surrounded by escort vessels.

In the fleet, Man-o-Wars run Patrol missions. Patrol missions do not earn Reales directly. Instead, they reduce the Risk Level of a region, which is critical for protecting your income-generating ships from catastrophic damage. Always run at least two Man-o-Wars on patrol to keep your Brigs and Schooners safe. We have a full guide on taking down El Tiburon, one of the toughest Man-o-War encounters in the game.

Understanding Risk Level

Every region on the fleet map has a Risk Level. You can see it in the bottom right corner of the fleet screen — it is a skull icon with a meter that fills up as your fleet commits piracy in that area.

The higher the Risk Level, the more damage your ships can take on missions. If the meter climbs high enough, the potential damage modifier can exceed 100 percent. That means even a fully healthy ship can be destroyed in a single mission.

To lower Risk, send a Man-o-War on a Patrol mission in that region. Once the patrol finishes, Risk drops. The meter will climb again as you send more Brigs and Schooners out, so keep a regular patrol rotation going. This is especially important in the southern regions, where missions are more profitable but also far more dangerous.

How Trade Routes and Regions Work

The fleet map divides the Caribbean into several named regions. Each region has its own set of missions, difficulty levels, and reward tiers. Northern regions are easier and pay less. Southern regions are harder but pay significantly more — up to 4,600 Reales per Trade mission in the toughest zones.

You unlock regions by capturing the fort that controls them. If a region is greyed out on the fleet map, there is a fort nearby you have not taken yet. Prioritise fort captures early to open up as much of the map as possible.

Some missions also require specific trade goods to start — things like wine or sugar. You spend resources to begin them and earn more resources when they complete. It is a give-and-take system. Keep your material stockpile healthy so you are never blocked from launching a mission.

How to Get Art Pieces from Kenway’s Fleet

Art Pieces are collectibles that fill the display slots in Great Inagua Manor. There are 41 total in the game. Getting them all unlocks the Dilettante trophy/achievement and completes the Art Lover quest with Bernard Woodhouse, which rewards the Le Bourgeoys Blades and the Found Coin trinket.

Art Pieces come from three sources:

• 16 are found as collectibles out in the open world
• 6 are purchased at General Stores
• 19 are random rewards from Brig Piracy missions in Kenway’s Fleet

The 19 fleet Art Pieces are the bottleneck. They are completely random. You do not get one every mission — it is a chance roll each time. Every Piracy mission takes between 30 and 60 minutes in the background.

Here are the steps to farm them efficiently:

• Capture at least 5 Brigs from hard southern regions — they have more health and survive longer
• Send all 5 Brigs on Piracy missions simultaneously across different regions
• Make a manual save before accepting the fleet report
• Accept the report and check the new batch of missions — if none of them reward an Art Piece, reload the save and accept again to reroll
• Repeat this process until an Art Piece mission appears, then send the appropriate Brig on it

Start this process as early as possible. Waiting until post-game will add hours of idle farming to your run. You can also earn some ship model Art Pieces by defeating and boarding new ship types — you get one model added to your collection each time you board a class of ship for the first time.

For more on what to do after you finish the main story and are in cleanup mode, see our what to do after the main story guide.

Best Fleet Setup for Maximum Gold

Once you have expanded to 10 berths, this is the composition most players recommend for consistent, high-output income:

• 4 Schooners — all running Trade missions for maximum Reales output
• 4 Brigs — running Piracy missions across all available regions, farming Art Pieces
• 2 Man-o-Wars — on permanent Patrol duty to keep Risk Levels manageable
• 1 slot always empty — so you can capture and swap in a better ship at any time

Skip Frigates in this setup. Warehouse missions are slower and the payout is not automatic. If you really want to run Warehouses, swap one Brig for one Frigate — but it is not the most efficient use of a slot.

Always aim for three-star versions of each ship type. Higher-star ships have more health, survive tougher missions, and need less frequent repairs. Northern regions have weaker one-star ships. The harder southern regions have the three-star versions you want.

How to Repair Ships

Ships take damage on every mission. You can see a damaged ship’s health from the main fleet screen. Select any damaged ship and hold the repair button to fix it using a small amount of crafting materials.

The smart approach: only repair a ship when the mission you want to send it on could potentially deal more damage than the ship’s current health. If a route has a maximum damage of 40 and your Brig has 60 health remaining, send it out without repairing. Save your materials for ships that are actually at risk of sinking.

Running Schooners on Trade missions is also useful for generating repair income — the Reales you earn go straight into restocking materials when needed. For a deeper look at crafting, visit our crafting guide.

Kenway’s Fleet Tips and Tricks

• Check the Captain’s Cabin often. Fleet missions complete in the background, but you need to be in the game world (not a menu) for time to pass.
• Use the spyglass to scout ship tiers before engaging. Orange and red star ratings in the spyglass mean a tougher and more valuable ship worth capturing for your fleet.
• Upgrade Great Inagua first. More buildings upgraded means more berths available, which means more ships running missions at once.
• Do not chase Legendary Ships for your fleet. They sink when defeated and cannot be added.
• Run patrols before high-value missions. Sending a Man-o-War on Patrol before launching expensive southern Trade and Piracy missions will save you from losing ships to high-Risk damage rolls.
• Save before accepting reports. This lets you reroll the available missions if the current batch does not include an Art Piece mission.

While managing your fleet, it is also worth keeping your Jackdaw upgraded. A stronger Jackdaw means access to better southern ships for your fleet. See our full ship upgrade and customisation guide for every upgrade path available.

Kenway’s Fleet and Trophies

Two trophies are directly tied to Kenway’s Fleet:

• Collective Madness — Send at least one Schooner, Brig, Frigate, and Man-o-War to Kenway’s Fleet. This happens naturally as you build your roster, but do not salvage a class before this pops.
• Dilettante — Fill all Art Collection slots in Great Inagua Manor. 19 of the required 41 Art Pieces come exclusively from Brig Piracy missions. Start farming these from Sequence 4 onwards. Do not wait.

For a full breakdown of every trophy and achievement in the game, head to our Owned trophy and achievement guide.

Where to Buy Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced

You can pick up the game on the following platforms:

• PlayStation Store
• Xbox Store
• Steam
• Epic Games Store

More AC Black Flag Resynced Guides

Building your fleet is just one part of the game. Here are more guides to help you with everything else:

• Beginner’s Tips
• All Mayan Stelae Locations
• All Templar Hunts Walkthrough
• All Main and Side Missions
• How Long to Beat AC Black Flag Resynced
• All Redeem Codes
• All New Content in Resynced

Frequently Asked Questions