LEGO® Xtra 40341 Sea Accessories

We're always excited to receive new sets from The LEGO Group but this supplementary set was definitely one of the stranger offerings... so after scratching our heads we challenged a man who will seemingly face any LEGO® challenge, Tim Goddard (Rogue Bantha), to actually build something with them!

The LEGO® Xtra line is a very welcome one, offering a chance to purchase some useful parts at a reasonable price. The Xtra set 40312 Streetlamps released last year contains particularly great parts such as the new lantern (Design ID 37776). I was sent three copies of the new 2019 set 40341 Sea Accessories to, um, review I guess.

There is something a bit fishy about this Xtra set though; the parts are not quite so useful as those found in other sets in the range and I am not sure I would be tempted to buy a copy myself.
Here are the contents of one set.

No new or recoloured parts here but there is an interesting selection including some less common parts like the 3-long Dark Brown bar (Element ID 6199910|Design ID 17715) and the bi-colour parrot (6178520|27062). As always, you get spares (in case you wondered why there are three flippers in the picture) but unusually there are no instructions or indeed any pieces of paper inside the bag. You are just expected to build the four-part buoy from the picture on the front. Challenging!

Without instructions I went rogue and used the parts (along with my collection) to build some MOCs. I was determined to use at least one of each part.

Saw shark and Hammerhead

I started with the trickiest part to build with, the shark (6044722|14518). I thought about some sort of spaceship but that went nowhere so I stuck with a vaguely nautical theme and fell back on building a couple of different kinds of shark. 

There was no real connection at the front of the body that I could find a way of using, and trying to build up from the anti-studs on the bottom just looked messy... so I went illegal.

The height of a headlight plate (Design ID 4081) proved perfect to comfortably hold in the mouth hole without slipping out or doing any damage. This proved the basis for the hammerhead and saw shark.

Waterlily

Next I went up to the surface. The flippers (6172932|29161) and the surfboard (6102906|17947) from the sets inspired the idea for a peaceful waterlily. Yes, I too was surprised I had so many lifeguard floats in my collection (4587323|90395).

Cornish Crab

I still had a lot of parts to use, what to do? You must have seen the news story that bobs up every few years about a container full of LEGO products that fell off a ship in a storm over twenty years ago? The parts washed up on Cornish beaches and you can still find some very weathered pieces today. The parts included flippers, life jackets and octopi; how ironic.

So that is what I built; a hermit crab that lives on one of those very beaches. He collects LEGO parts as the perfect disguise from the ravenous seagulls.

That is it, I have used at least one of each part!... no wait, I missed one, do you know which?

I'll be even more impressed if you can build something with it.

READ MORE: See more fantastic models and articles by Tim Goddard for New Elementary

Help New Elementary keep publishing articles like this. You can send an amount of your choosing via PayPal or card by click the image on the right. Think of it as the price of an app, or a book, or a yearly magazine subscription – whatever we're worth to you, we'd be honoured to receive it. You can also help us by doing what you perhaps do already - buying from Amazon. Amazon USA: Amazon.com Canada: Amazon.ca UK: Amazon.co.uk Deutschland: Amazon.de

Products mentioned in this post were kindly supplied by the LEGO Group. All content represents the opinions of New Elementary authors and not the LEGO Group. All text and images are © New Elementary unless otherwise attributed.