2024
A Year in Port Polar Bear
Brouhaha
Brouhaha 2024 was ultimately canceled
ending the streak at 15 consecutive, hopefully we can get it back and running
next spring.
Port Polar Bear
Memorial Weekend Battle Sat/Sun May 25,
26 2024
We battled Saturday and Sunday
before Memorial Day again this year. In attendance were: Tyler (Florida), McCoy
(VU), Addie (Tourville), Bob (Nagato), Zach (Nagato), Andy (Matt’s Nagato),
Mike (Seydlitz and Caio Duilio), Peter (Erin), Owen (Moltke), KC Tom (WW1
Montana). Rick was in Spain on vacation with his wife. When he returns, I
expect he will be inspired to start battling the Spanish cruiser Canarias. Mike
and Tyler can’t wait to ask if the rain in Spain does in fact fall mainly in
the plain.
The whole crew went to the Twins
game on Friday night, they played an hour earlier than usual because the Timberwolves
were also in town for the Western Conference Finals (they lost to Dallas). We got out at a very reasonable time, the
pitch clock continues to significantly cut down on game duration. The Twins
beat the Rangers 3-2, Bob was fairly consistently text messaging taunts to Jeff,
who lives in the Dallas Metro area and is a huge baseball fan. Bob’s other goal
was to get on TV, which he did when there was a sharp hit down the right field
line (we were sitting on the lowest seats right at the field level about half
way between first base and the home run fence) and Bob stood up to help the
umpire signal fair ball.
Mike and Andy are the only two
MN guys planning to go to Nats this year. One of the
goals was to save the sheeting on their primary ships so they wouldn’t have to re-sheet
in the next month, Nats is June this year. For this
reason, Andy took Matthew’s Nagato out (since he was unable to make the battle
and sounds most motivated to get his Seydlitz going for the fall) and Mike took
Brandon’s Caio Duilio to battle. We learned that the Caio Duilio needs more
bulge and bow water channeling, it can’t currently take enough damage to be competitive.
Also, Matthew’s Nagato seems too top heavy, either the superstructure needs to
be lightened significantly or the internal components need to be rebalanced, as
it has a nasty habit of taking on an inconsistent list with light to moderate damage.
When Andy took the superstructure completely off it was fine. Something will have
to change.
Saturday we battled Hellands + Andy + Tom vs the rest. Mike started with the Cioa Duilio but switched to the Seydlitz thereafter. The
battling felt fairly close. Team Helland won the first battle by 1600. We broke
for portable grilled foot longs (burnt on the outside and frozen in the middle
is the preferred style) for lunch and did a second battle. Unfortunately unlike
last season, Owen’s mom didn’t send desert with him to share, we were sure to
firmly set expectations for future battles. Team Helland lost the second battle
by 1000 points. This was a 3 sortie battle because the day was getting a bit
away from us.
Saturday evening we had pizza at
Bob’s garage. There was very minimal serious boat work all weekend but we
patched and visited for a bit. Addie wanted some pitching instruction from Bob
so we threw the ball around, she had to go from 35 to 40 foot distance and
increase from 11 inch to 12 inch softball this year throwing her mechanics into
a bit of an adjustment period. We clocked her at 35mph. Even as I write this
two weeks later she is already coming around. McCoy wanted to check out Andy’s
3D printing projects and we headed over there briefly as well. We were
impressed by his RC aircraft collection and his printed PT boat project.
On Sunday we changed teams, Hellands + Zach + Tom vs the rest. Owen didn’t show up
right away so Mike took his Moltke for a quick spin. Zach must have carried us,
Hellands won by 3600. More foot long hot dogs for
lunch, but this time Tyler brought some gas station cookies for dessert. For the
2nd battle we flipped McCoy and Peter so the Helland pig boats could
dual. McCoy and Peter were disappointed because they had been having a lot of
fun prior to that slugging it out with each other in most of the prior sorties.
The Hellands – McCoy + Zack + Tom + Peter (this is
getting confusing) team won by 1450. We were making good time and did a full 3rd
battle with the same teams and a similar result, 1750 point win.
The Florida was out for the
first time ever. Tyler built it without wood (fiberglass decks) and magnetic
strips for deck seal. He built it because it came with a stack of ships
obtained from Gerald and was the correct combination of ugly and bulgy. Also,
he wanted to battle a slow pig boat with McCoy. It performed fairly wall
overall, the guns were quite reliable. It doesn’t turn as well as the VU due to
the single rather than twin rudders. Damage taking could be a little better, it
needs to adjust batteries forward slightly and get some more water channeling
in the bulges as it tends to list when sinking. The barbettes will likely be
sealed better as well. When driven aggressively it sank with 33-8-31. Tyler
found out that you have to be a little more gentle with small boats, the Yamato
and Nagato can slam in to ships relentlessly and get half pushed into water
without noticing, but the Florida doesn’t have the mass to play like that. On a
very positive note, there was zero muscle soreness or back pain hauling the
Florida around (as opposed to the Yamato), even allowing for a 5.5 mile run
before battle Sunday morning.
Owen had the Moltke out as his
new primary ship. He previously had been living on loaners but obtained it this
winter. The ship originally belonged to Ron who built the plug/original for Swampworks decades ago. Bob ended up with it (completely re-built
and re-branded it Goben) and battled her briefly. Bob then sold it to Johnny.
Johnny sold it to Brandon. Brandon sold it to Owen. Though it has lived in MN,
Texas, Nevada, I don’t think it battled much outside of MN and the Brouhaha in
Louisiana before it came full circle back to Port Polar Bear. Bob helped Owen
get it back up to ship shape over the winter including a very impressive Mike inspired
deck seal. The thing can drive half under water and pop back up without
problems fairly consistently. It takes a slight list towards the funny gun
(starboard) as it sinks but the deck seal is so good it doesn’t matter too much.
The real problem at this point is that Owen needs some defensive driving lessons.
He worked hard to narrowly take the most damaged for the weekend away from Tom
and did succeed in the end, with a total of 259(a)-73(o)-243(b). Tom didn’t let
it go without a fight having his own 528 above, but Owen had 33 more below than
Tom.
Nats is
in June this year. We will battle again in Chanhassen Sept 7/8.
Tyler