I made this cake as a gift for a friend's son's birthday party 2 weeks ago.

First I crumb coated the ship part of the cake with chocolate buttercream frosting. For the shape of the cake I made my own template from a piece of parchment paper and carved it from that. I traced the shape of the pan onto the paper and instead of the rectangle shape I just made one end come to a point as from a birds eye view of the ship. Then I placed it over one 9x13 inch cake and carved the cake out. Then for the other layers I just used partials of that template.

I made the railings by piping a ladder formation with melted chocolate chips onto a piece of waxed paper and chillling. Before chilling I stuck toothpicks into ends of each railing so it would be easy to put the cake together when decorating.

Also the jolly roger flag is actually a piece of fondant with royal icing for the skull and crossbones.

I rolled out fondant and cut it with a pizza cutter to make the wood planks. Then brushed it with brown foodcoloring mixed with water. I painted all of them once they were all attached--it was much easier.

I see many mistakes and areas of improvement, but he absolutely loved it and that is all that matters! ;)