Sandship - The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword Guide - IGN (2024)

Welcome to IGN's Walkthrough for the Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. This page contains information on the Sandship dungeon, including how to get the Bow, and defeat its boss, Tentalus.

Video Guide - Sandship Part 1

To find the Sandship you need to travel to the northeast area of the Sand Sea and flip on your Dowsing ability. You can Dowse from the boat and pilot it while you point the cursor.

When you Dowse you will find a moving, invisible mass, floating in a wide circle around the rocks in a ring here. To expose the ship, pursue it with your Dowsing activated until you believe you are close.

When you get close, fire your cannon right at it (aim high) and you should hit it and make it temporarily visible!

After this, return to Dowsing and pursue it again. Fire once more to expose the ship -- you'll have to hit it a few more times to make it completely visible. When you do so, Link will climb aboard in a cutscene.

Floor 1F

Enter the double doors on the ship's deck -- you can't do anything else at this point.

Floor B1

Head down the stairs and save at the Bird Statue. There is a Goddess Wall you can activate here, but you can't do much else since one hallway leads to a dead end. The other hallway in the south has an open door and a few Keese in it. Enter the door here.

Roll a Bomb at the Electro Spume. You can cross the quicksand here, but you'll need to conserve your Stamina. Alternate sprinting and walking and you can reach the hallway on the far side.

Head east and enter the door at the bottom of the stairs.

Floor B2

An Aracha-filled hallway can be cleaned out with a bit of swordplay or the whip. To the west is a Boss Door and a Treasure Room, neither of which is accessible at this time. Enter the doors in the northern hallway.

In this sand-filled room you'll find a strange door lock that requires a specific combination that you enter with sword strikes. The combination happens to be: BOTTOM, TOP, BOTTOM, RIGHT, and here's how you figure that out:

Under the sand are four ship wheels with a blue mark on each, representing the lock on the door. The red paint represents the TOP of the wheel, so you need to view them from the correct perspective. Additionally, each wheel has a certain number of red “spokes” indicating the order, from one to four.

Regardless, the combination above will open the door. Lock on and hit the blue lock parts in the correct order. Inside the room you'll find a Small Key.

Floor 1F

Video Guide - Sandship Part 2

This Small Key opens a door on 1F, just across from the door leading out to the deck. Enter this door to fight a miniboss.

LD-002S Scervo

The Scervo robot is constrained to one path, so stabbing motions and vertical Spin Attacks work best. That said, this fight is all about Shield Bash counterattacks.

When you counter Scervo's moves, you can get in quite a few attacks. Each attack pushes Scervo towards a ledge in the distance, so stay on the offensive and only wait to counter if it winds up to strike.

If you keep stabbing Scervo you can get him to the edge and he'll bring a spiked gate behind you closer. Run straight for him to make up some space and return to the same tactics.

Once you get Scervo to the edge of the ship platform a second time, his sword will fall off and he'll begin using a spinning hook attack. This attack is a bit hard to counter, but you can definitely do it -- switch to a more defensive strategy and Shield Bash these attacks. Get Scervo to the edge of the platform to win the battle.

For beating Scervo you'll get the Bow. This fantastic weapon can kill enemies from a great distance and activate Eye Switches throughout the Sandship. You can charge an Arrow for your Bow before shooting it to make it more powerful. It will also fly further.

One of these Eye Switches is on the mast pole of the Sandship. Head to the deck and look for it above the center of the ship.

Shoot the Eye Switch to open a Timeshift Stone high above. Hit the Switch and then the Stone with your new Bow to transform the entire ship.

A Bokoblin will then close the Timeshift Stone's cage. This Timeshift Stone is the only one on the entire ship, so your only option is to get up there and open it again! Climb the tall ladder on the mast pole and you will find yourself on a precarious beam above the ship.

Use your Bow to kill every enemy on the upper masts. An Eye Switch above one of the ziplines can be shot to bring the handle down to you. Use this to reach the mast to the west.

Once again, use your Bow to clear out every Bokoblin you can see. If you shoot them with your Bow, they will drop arrows!

Another Eye Switch/zipline contraption will get you to the far east mast. From here you can open the Timeshift Stone gate (but do NOT deactivate the Stone).

Take the zipline to the short mast in the east and drop below to the eastern deck.

Heart Piece

Once you make your way through the crow's nests of the Sandship you'll have access to the rear of the ship. You can use the Clawshots to reach a Clawshot Target that lets you drop down the back side of the ship. A Chest here contains the Heart Piece.

A Goddess Wall can also be found on the lower eastern deck. Draw an arrow on this to get more arrows! (It must have a simple feather at one end and a point at the other).

Return to the main deck but, before you head back inside the ship, look for an Eye Switch on the life boat on the north side of the ship. You have to climb up a ladder to get to it.

Floor B1

Head down to B1 and enter the room with the sunlight streaming into it along the western wall -- by the quicksand pit. You can shoot the Timeshift Stone on the ship's mast through the grate the light is streaming through to disable it.

Once it is disabled you can enter the adjacent room and open the Chest for the Dungeon Map. Pull the wall switch here to make a path out, and hit the Timeshift Stone again through the grate in the ceiling.

Across the sand pit is a hallway with four doors. On the north and south sides of this hallway are two switches that activate the ship's engine.

Enter the open northeastern door first. Kill the Technoblins and then move the block onto the floor switch.

This opens the windows of the ship allowing you to do several things: You can now use the life boat you lowered from above to return to the deck (shoot the Eye Switch on it to move it up or down, if you forgot to move it down, return to the upper deck and shoot it); you can also reach the generator room far below. But you cannot do anything in the engine room until you get the parts moving within it.

Take the lifeboat up to the deck above and shoot the Timeshift Stone to disable it. Take the lifeboat back down and enter the adjacent room that was previously blocked off by electricity.

In this room is a grate on the ceiling. Activate the Timeshift Stone again through the grate using your Bow. You can find a sword slot on a contraption in the corner of this room.

Stab it and twist the dial to activate the moving pistons below in the engine room. you cannot, however, traverse the whole room yet.

Pull the wall switch to open the door to the hallway. Disable the Timeshift Stone through the ceiling grate.

Video Guide - Sandship Part 3

Out in the hallway, look for a fan on the wall with light streaming through it. With the Timeshift Stone disabled, you can shoot the Eye Switch through the stopped fan blades.

This will unlock the southeastern door in the hallway. Enter it and move the block out of the way on the nearby platform. You can now shoot an eye switch through this fan, but you must stand on a floor switch to open it.

Stand on the floor switch and line up your shot. This opens the final door in the hallway (the southwestern door). Now, return to the hallway and enter the northwestern door where you previously cranked on the ship's engine. Hit the Timeshift Stone with your Bow through the grate in the ceiling to turn it on.

Head back into the southwestern door and kill the Technoblins in the room. You can activate the second, and final, engine switch here by stabbing it with your sword.

Go to the hallway again, enter the northeastern door and climb out of the window by the lifeboat. Take the ladder down to B3.

Floor B3

In the engine room, all of the pistons should be moving. You must avoid these by carefully timing your sprints.

A Whip grip can be found above a pit just past the first set of pistons. You can use this to access the Treasure Room. Use your Whip to grab the grip and use A to stop swinging. Position yourself to face the ledge on the western side with a ladder and swing over to it.

Floor B1

This ladder leads to a room with 5 Chests in it, containing 3 rare Treasures and 2 Silver Rupees!

Floor B3

Head back down the ladder to the engine room. The final stretch of pistons is harder to traverse. You can use the Whip grip to swing onto the first piston, but you have to wait for it to rise, and the other to fall, to jump to the next.

On the far side, pull the wall switch to make a shortcut. Crawl in the small hole and you can climb a ladder up to the bridge on B2.

Floor B2

Free the robots and they will give you a Small Key. You can use this key on the deck of the ship to access the Captain's Cabin. Take the life boat up to the deck.

Floor F1

Note that you can use your Whip to steal the Bokoblins' Monster Horns now, if you should run across a Bokoblin calling for backup.

Hit the Timeshift Stone on deck to disable it. Enter the locked door on deck with the Small Key and head down the stairs.

In the Captain's Cabin you can save at the Bird Statue. In the open room you can shoot the Timeshift Stone through the grate in the ceiling to activate the room's enemies. Be sure to not to sacrifice your Shield by letting the Beamos tear it to pieces -- a Shield Bash can send its beam back at it to stun it. Alternately, you can now use your Bow to shoot the Beamos' eye to kill it instantly. With the enemies out of the way, stand on the red floor switch and shoot an arrow at the Eye Switch through the hole in the wall.

This will open the door into the next room. This room has three Beamos in it, so don't just run in blind. Stay back and snipe at their eyes with the Bow.

Once all the Beamos are killed, the room with the final Chest will open. Inside is the Squid Carving (Boss Key).

Floor B2

The Boss Door is on B2. Head here and save before opening it. Sit on a stool by the Bird Statue to recover your full health before heading into the boss door.

Place the Squid Carving in the Boss Door so the carving resembles a skull with the red eye in the middle facing outward.

The tentacles that tear up the ship can only be cut with a Skyward Strike. Charge your sword and unleash a vertical slice to move them.

Make your way up the stairs, dodging barrels and slashing tentacles. Once you get to the deck, the boss will reveal himself.

Tentalus

Video Guide - Tentalus Boss Battle

Tentalus is a large sea monster with a single, obvious weak point: it's massive eye. Shooting the eye with an arrow will always bring the monster down so you can slash at its eye. The problem is getting a clean shot.

At the start of the fight you need to slash a few tentacles with your Skyward Strike ability. To do this, hold the sword vertically so it charges, then run around to avoid getting hit. Lock on to a nearby tentacle and unleash the sword's energy with a horizontal slash to cut the tentacle in half.

Do this to 3 or 4 tentacles and the Tentalus will rise up, allowing you to hit its eye with an arrow. Once the Tentalus falls to the deck, sprint up to its eye and slash it until it reels back for another round.

You need to repeat this cycle 2 more times. Each time more tentacles will burst through the deck so you need to charge your sword and unleash a strike quickly. This is where moving around a lot and locking on comes in handy.

For the final phase of the fight you must climb onto the higher portion of the deck. Tentalus now uses its tentacles on its head to attack -- but these ones have little, freaky mouths. To get a clear shot at its eye you simply need to slash at the tentacles frantically (a spin attack can help) until the beast pauses its onslaught.

Shoot the eye and then sprint up to it and slash at it with your sword. You'll have to repeat this entire cycle at least once more to slay the beast.

Grab your Heart Container and a cutscene will occur. After the cutscene, you will have an upgraded sword -- with more Dowsing slots. Eventually, Fi will begin adding things like Gratitude Crystals to the potential Dowsing targets.

After you are returned to the dock, use the Bird Statue to get to the sky.

• Note that you can now play Rickety Coaster at the Shipyard for a Heart Piece if you want.