The game is played on a board which depicts an area of open sea surrounded by land with a treasure island in the centre. This is overlayed with a grid of squares to regulate movement.

All the treasures are placed on Treasure Island.
Each has a different value with diamonds/rubies worth 5, gold 4, pearls 3 to Rum worth 2.
Players begin from a Home Port with a ship and a hand of crew cards. Crew cards come in red & black and are valued 1 to 3. These determine movement, so if the cards total ten, a player can move up to 10 spaces. Movement must be along one straight line only.

During a turn a player has a choice of 1 of 3 options:

Sail to treasure island and take a chance
When a player gets to treasure island he takes a chance card, which generally lets him take treasure and/or crew, but also reveals an assortment of hazards also. For example, 'Take treasure up to 5 in value OR 3 crew cards from Pirate Island'. Or a hazard such as 'You lose one treasure from your ship, or two crew cards, washed overboard to Flat Island'.

Sail to any port to trade
This lets you sail to any port and exchange treasure and/or crew for treasure and/or crew to the same value. Treasures taken to your Home Port are not safe until you have three the same, when they can be put in a safety zone. Until then, other players can freely sail into your home port and take your just collected treasures. Frustrating.

Sail to attack an opponent
A player can sail into an opponents square. They then deduct one colour of values from the other to get a crew strength. Highest value wins and can take treasure or crew from the loser. It goes without saying that you really try to only get crew of one colour. Not much use having 6 red and 6 black crew - their fighting value is zero!

The winner is the player who returns to his Home Port and has treasure with a value of 20 points in his docks and safety zone.

SUMMARY:
This is a nice straightforward game, and a good family game to introduce youngsters to gaming. Note there are no dice, so apart from the luck of the cards that would make it a game of skill, I guess.

Review by Brian