Since it is a story about pirates, One Piece also features a variety of awesome pirate ships. These ships often receive the same amount of detail and innovation that mangaka Eiichiro Oda puts into his character designs. This grants them a charm and flair that ships in other series don't have and makes ranking them based on coolness a meaningful task.

Of course, before ranking these ships, some ground rules about what qualifies as a ship must be established. This may seem silly, but the vast variety of vessels in One Piece makes this an important thing to clarify. For the purposes of this list, ships won't need to be limited to sailing on the surface of the sea, allowing vehicles like submarines and airships to qualify. However, these ships must actually be able to travel freely from one location to another, prohibiting the inclusion of things like Sea Trains, which can only travel on set rail paths despite being made by a shipwright. With these ground rules in place, here are the ten coolest ships in One Piece.

10 Whitebeard's Moby Dick

Whitebeard's ship the Moby Dick is as gargantuan as its namesake. It also fittingly looks like a giant whale, which makes it adorable. While this may not be as intimidating as one might expect a Yonko ship to look, Whitebeard is also one of nobler Yonko fostering a large family through his crew and generally not terrorizing those under his power like Big Mom and Kaido do. Regardless of how intimidating or not it may be, a ship shaped like a giant whale is still incredibly cool and easily earns a spot on this list.

9 Kid's Victoria Punk

Kid's ship may have been destroyed during his confrontation with Shanks, but it was very cool for the brief time it appeared. Named the Victoria Punk after a childhood friend of Kid and Killer, the ship has a wicked skull at its prow that fits with Kid's edgier persona. The ship isn't as important to the story when compared with many of the other vessels on this list now that Kid has been utterly crushed by Shanks, but based on its awesome design it is still one of the coolest ships in the series.

8 Enel’s Sky Ark Maxim

Enel’s sky ark Maxim may have been built to sail the air instead of the sea, but this makes it no less cool. Airships in One Piece actually are shaped like the ships that most pirates use to sail the sea, and the Maxim is no exception. Fitted with a giant golden head representing the full extent of Enel’s ego the ship is perfect for the megalomaniacal villain of the Skypiea arc. What makes the ship even more impressive despite its size and appearance is that it actually works, successfully managing to ferry Enel to the moon as he planned.

7 Baratie

The Baratie is a floating restaurant captained by the pirate Zeff that is shaped like a giant fish. The concept of a floating restaurant in the middle of the sea is a perfectly whimsical one that fits naturally into One Piece’s world. While its fish-shaped design may not look as cool as many of the other vessels on this list it does make it utterly unique and that in turn grants it a coolness that many of the more standard ships on this list lack. Its meaning for existing as shown in Sanji’s backstory also grants it a nobility that many other vessels on this list lack.

6 Law’s Polar Tang

Law’s submarine makes this list for being completely unique among the other pirate vessels in the series. Named the Polar Tang, the sub is shown to be a bit more technologically advanced than some other ships in the series, housing life support units that helped keep Luffy alive after the fierce battle on Marineford. This perfectly fits with Law’s role as a doctor and also gives him and his crew a bit of flair that many of the other supernovas lack. Unfortunately, the vessel was sunk in Law's tragic battle with Blackbeard so it likely won’t appear much in the future.

5 Big Mom’s Queen Mama Chanter

Big Mom’s Ship is the Queen Mama Chanter, a massive vessel that has been brought to life by the Yonko’s Devil Fruit powers. It perfectly fits with Big Mom’s aesthetic, having a cake behind its figurehead, frosting dripping from its sides and ice cream cones on its masts. Much like Big Mom herself, the Queen Mama Chanter’s cute and childish appearance belies its massive threat. When it first appeared in the Dressrosa arc, it made the Thousand Sunny seem small and insignificant due to its gigantic size. Even with Big Mom’s apparent death it is potentially still alive like Zeus and may seek revenge if it ever encounters the Thousand Sunny again.

4 The Going Merry

This may be a controversial placement for the Straw Hat Pirates’ first ship but unfortunately, it isn’t as cool as some of the other vessels coming later on this list, That being said, the Going Merry is still an extremely awesome ship, not only housing the crew on their journey but truly becoming a part of them. After saving them with the last of its strength in Waters Seven, the crew even gave the ship an extremely emotional funeral, which was the perfect sendoff to the scrappy caravel. While the Straw Hats would eventually acquire a cooler ship, the Merry still holds a special place in many One Piece fans’ hearts.

3 Thriller Bark

While the Thriller Bark arc itself may not be the most fondly remembered arc of the series, the ship itself is incredibly cool. Thriller Bark is the largest ship in One Piece’s world, captained by the warlord Gecko Moria and used to trap ships that sail inside its edges. Thriller Bark is large enough to be an island in its own right and its spooky aesthetic sets it apart from any other island in the Grand Line. Its name is also a pun on the real-life ship known as a barque which was also rather large.

2 Mihawk’s Hitsugibune

Unlike most other pirates Dracule Mihawk does not have a grand ship. Instead he sails the sea in a small vessel known as the Hitsugibune, which is Japanese for “Coffin Ship”. The vessel is almost more of a raft than a ship, but it does have a central mast shaped like one of Mihawk’s crucifix swords. It also has two candles on each edge that light the dark. The ship looks incredibly cool, but what makes it even cooler is that it serves as a testament to Mihawk’s skill that he can actually sail the Grand Line with such a craft.

1 The Thousand Sunny

Of course the coolest ship in One Piece is going to belong to its protagonists the Straw Hat Crew. After tearfully laying the Going Merry to rest, their new shipwright Franky built them a new ship, the Thousand Sunny which was much bigger and had a lot more features. These features include a powerful air cannon that can launch it forward as well as the Soldier Dock system that includes many smaller crafts the Straw Hats can use for a variety of purposes. The ship is also made out of Adam Wood, which is one of the most valuable materials in the world. All this easily makes the Thousand Sunny the coolest ship in the series.

Of course, there are still some iconic ships that have not been shown in the manga and anime yet. A prime example of this is Blackbeard’s ship The Saber of Xebec, which will likely appear later in the series when Blackbeard becomes a more direct threat in the series. But until those ships appear, these are the 10 coolest ships in One Piece.