2026 A Year in Port Polar Bear

 

Build Meeting - February 21, 2026

 

Some of the Polar Bears got together for a build meeting at Tyler’s on Saturday, February 21. Bob and Mike showed up around 10AM. Bob wanted to fill in some water channeling in to Andy’s Nagato. A couple small pours of 2 part plastic/micro-balloons did the trick. Bob also had Owen’s cut fiberglass cruiser hull with. He got a Cleveland hull at Nats last year that is hopefully going to be done for Nats 2026 campaign and cruiser battle. The sub deck was traced out from the plan set and he had already done the work to determine the placement of the cross braces and deck pieces. Tyler took the tracing, made the required adjustments so it would fit inside the fiberglass hull, and cut/sanded it out. Before long the actual deck was also traced and cut and partially glued together. Affixing it into the hull and installing the latch system will be the next part. Meanwhile, Bob milled out some stainless steel pistons and Mike cut some brass tube for hose barbs to go on guns. Mike brought some red licorice that we munched on. Matthew showed up just in time for pizza. After lunch we worked on Matthew’s Seydlitz guns. He had bought the ship from Charlie a few years ago, who typically soldered his guns together. This makes them much less workable when something is acting up. Also, the breech compression fittings are different than the Port Polar Bear standard, so we took his guns apart, fit them for compression connections, and made new up feeds. By close to 2 pm we were done with the bulk of the work we had planned on completing and Bob and Mike needed to go shovel snow any way. Andy had printed some secondary guns for jap ships (mostly the Akagi) and Tyler played around with that briefly after the others left. McCoy and Tyler then spent some time working on the McCoy’s convoy ship, the Akitsushima. Though we seem to get together in small groups occasionally throughout the winter (mostly at Bob’s) it was fun to see the guys, talk smart, and work on boats when the ponds are otherwise solid.

 

Port Polar Bear Memorial Weekend Battle - Fri/Sat/Sun May 22, 23, 24 2026

 

The Polar Bears battled Memorial Weekend as usual. Local battlers included: Bob (Nagato, Brandon’s Caio Duilio, Brandon’s VV), Zach (Nagato), Andy (his Nagato, Matthew’s Nagato), Peter (Erin), Matthew (Seydlitz), Mike (Seydltiz), Owen (Moltke), Tyler (Yamato), McCoy (Barham). From Missouri: Tom (Alaska), Rick (Jamaica), Kevin (Moltke). On Friday afternoon, Bob, Zach, Tom, Rick, Owen, Mike had a quick 2 sortie battle.

 

On Saturday it was very slow going however led to only 2 battles (4 sorties) which is not the PPB standard. Bob, Zach, Andy, Mike all had upgraded to 7.4 volt LiPo batteries due to the old supply of NiMH starting to finally get cruddy. The brushless drive motors were initially tuned to the 6 volt system and the ships were very fast until they were adjusted down in speed. The pump motors are another story however, as it turns out the brushed stinger motors don’t like the extra voltage and would cook in 2-5 minutes causing tons of sinks. They tried various combinations of brushed motors and pump housings without an adequate response. With the smell of electrical fire still strong in the air, after some testing, Bob thinks that paradoxically, some of the motors draw higher amps which caused the voltage to drop and keep the motor alive (Mikes basically made it the whole weekend) while others don’t draw as many amps and burn out. The question now is to either keep testing brushed motors (both for survivability and for pump ability) or switch to brushless pumps which is becoming the trend otherwise. The battling was chaotic as usual, but even more chaotic because any given sortie a ship or three would fry both pumps 5 minutes in and sink, leading to some very lop-sided battling at times. One highlight for bob was trapping Rick’s cruiser and giving him 25-3-14 and a sink, probably as much damage as he takes in a year otherwise. Towards the tail end of a battle we called free for all so the rest could all just empty our guns. Chris, a new guy from southern Minnesota showed up on Saturday with a “Big Gun” USS Texas that he had assembled mostly through 3D printing, hopefully we can get him to put together a “Fast Gun” version of it. Saturday night we had pizza at Bob’s and worked on ships. Kevin’s Moltke wasn’t up to snuff and didn’t battle the entire weekend. He said he spread himself too thin and didn’t get the boat work done that he really needed before the event. He headed home on Sunday morning. He took a lot of video from Saturday.

 

Similarly on Sunday we did 2 four sortie battles. Similarly the battling was unpredictable with various low damage sinks due to pumps burning out. We were able to get most of the battling done by about 2-3pm so Tom/Rick could hit the road. After the 4th sortie Tyler, McCoy, and Peter wanted more so they threw out for a 3rd sortie death match: Yamato vs Barham and Erin. The Yamato had just sunk and Tyler was whining about pumps being clogged, after they were cleaned out it seemed not to matter. The 3rd sortie started with McCoy trading 1 for 2 with the Yammer while the Erin shot the other side. After about 50 seconds the Yamato sank, and after 10 more seconds the Barham Sank with peter emptying his gun into his teammate and laughing the whole time.

 

Nats is just 3 weeks away, which is a very quick turnaround. All of us have a ton of ship work to do to get ready, hopefully this doesn’t feel too much like work and we can set ourselves up for an enjoyable Nats in Statesboro, Georgia.

 

-Tyler

 

 

NATS 2026 - June 15-19 2026

 

Nats this year was in Statesboro, Georga. Completing the 2 day drive down were Tyler (Yamato), Bob (Nagato), Andy (Nagato), Mike (Seydltiz), Owen (Moltke). Matthew (Seydlitz) flew. We took both Tyler’s truck and Bob’s van (which is evidently on it’s last bit of life due to some transmission problems), we figured we needed the room since honorary PPB captain Brandon flew in from Reno and we took his Caio Duilio, VV, and Liberte predread. Other honorary captains Kevin (Molkte, QE), Tom (WWI Montanna), and Rick (Jamaica, Lutzow) also made the drive.

 

We left Friday morning. The 20 hour ride took us through Maddison, WI then south through central Illinois on the way down. A huge wind farm was a pretty cool sight. We stopped on the opposite side of Nashville for the night and did the remining 6 hours Saturday morning. Getting through Atlanta was a pain, there was an accident on the freeway and we were routed around it, but we sat for about 45 minutes slowly creeping through a protected green arrow that only let 5 cars through at a time, and right as it was going to be our turn to go, a car 3 spots in front of us broke down making us lose even more time. Once we were finally in town we met up with the group and found our way to supper at ATown Wings, the sparse meat on the bone led to Bob joking that they were pigeon wings.

 

Sunday test and check in day overall was a mix. The day was hot and humid. Several issues were noted including Tyler having to change drive motors on both the Duca d’Aosta and the Yamato. Bob was using the Bermuda as his cruiser which hadn’t battled in several years. He put a new rudder on and though it turned awesome, it was so sharp and the ship leaned so hard into the turn that it swamped itself in the stern. Bob eventually cut the rudder up and later moved the rudder post and rebuilt a new rudder all pond side. Owen’s convoy ship had never been on the water, it needed a few adjustments and superstructure, for which the old USS Bike’s deck was used. He also got his USS Duluth on the water for the first time. We ate at an awesome Mexican restaurant and had 2 margarita towers.

 

Monday brought 2 full fleet battles. Matthew and Tyler were on one fleet (Orange) with Rick, the other (Green) had the rest of the Polar Bears and honorary members. On a few instances Tim B in the Bismarck and Tyler in the Yamato were able to isolate and surround a ship, with assistance from teammates. Steve’s Texas took a pounding, as did Ronnie’s Nagato, which was sunk with an astounding 96 below, earning the most damage with a sink award. Bob and Andy with Mike in tow worked together to try to wolf pack most of the week. When Mike got distracted Bob would say “squirrel” to get him back on track. Supper was BBQ.

 

Tuesday was similar to Monday in that we did 2 full fleet battles. After the first battle several guys went in the pond to recover a sunken Invincible. The process however kicked up loads of moss and ships with direct drive (suck as convoy ships and cruisers) rather than geared drive (as battleships more commonly have) were having a hard time generating enough torque to push through the moss. After some of these smaller vessels did some on the water testing between battles the decision was made to do a 2nd fleet battle instead of campaign on Tuesday afternoon. Even then, several battleships had moss problems and needed to be pushed to shore by another ship to clear moss. During the search for the Invincible, the guys stumbled on Steve A’s French heavy cruiser which was actually lost at that pond 5 years ago when Nate A attended his first battle ever and was sunk. I don’t think much of it was usable any more. We humored Tom and got seafood for supper.

 

Wednesday we did cruiser battle. I still call it the Cruiser Battle even though it’s a class 3 and lower battle, allowing armored cruisers and pre-dreads to play. We had 2 destroyers this year. Brandon had his Liberte and the Bitando brothers had their pre-dreads with cannons that rotate away from the rudder, which though they had working for a few years now, was our tech award for the week. Bob had the Bermuda fairly situated by then. Unfortunately, Andy had problems with his Glorie needing some drive system fixes, ultimately getting it ready for Campaign battles on Thursday with only minimal cruiser battle participation. He and Mike wished they had gone to see the Yorktown and Laffey in Mount Pleasant, SC. We only did 2 full two sortie cruiser battles and moved slowly. Several ships dropped out during the four sorties. We ultimately left the pond in the early afternoon and had some pool time. For supper we wanted to find some burgers and went to the very generically named “Sports Bar Grill and Lounge” however, it seemed to be a very new business and they didn’t seem to have a liquor license, nor did they have sports on the TV, nor did they really have much of a lounge. We joked that it should be just called “Grill.” The burgers were really good though. After supper we went to host Brian K’s house which was near the pond and had ice cream. He was jettisoning a bunch of old boat stuff and Tyler grabbed a Yamato hull to slap a flight deck on someday, as well as several plan sets for ships he will probably never build. For the first time in a number of years, Tyler went to night battle opting to run the Yamato dark. He was constantly afraid to run hard though as it would be extremely easy to T-bone ram sink someone unintentionally. On the Orange Fleet were Tom T, Brian K, and Tyler vs the Green Fleet Ronnie H, Cameron H, Owen, Cam M, Matt M, Ken K. Owen, at his first ever night battle with newly installed lights ended up sinking with light damage. Bob loves to tell the stories of Night Battle disasters of yesteryear, for Owen, this one will probably make that list.

 

Thursday was campaign day. As mentioned, due to the moss both campaign battles were run on Thursday. The Orange fleet managed to run the big convoy ships fairly steadily and the Green fleet had more convoy ship reliability issues. Very atypically, the Orange targets stayed up for about 20 minutes, allowing Tim to reload his Bismark for the first time ever, he felt like it was Christmas morning and reeked havoc. Tyler shot down targets and then shot convoy ships with the Italian Cruiser, getting 3 sorties before throwing the Yamato out. The Yammer bow gunned Ken K’s small convoy ship dislodging the internal armor and disconnecting the receiver battery. The ship ran in a large circle and was helped to shore declared sunk. The Nagatos hounded Bitando predreads near the end of both campaign battles. The second campaign was fairly similar, though the larger Green convoy ships seemed to fair slightly better. Also both teams shot targets down right away. The recovery of ships during the break again stirred up moss making for at times frustrating conditions. Several cruisers were constantly on moss check as they didn’t have the torque to chop through the moss like geared battle ships. Tyler ran 4 sorties in the cruiser, two of them were about 2 minutes long emptying the guns at bigger convoy ships who happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, which allowed for rapid turnaround. In the evening we returned to delicious Mexican.

 

Friday fleet battle was fairly similar to the prior battles. The Nagato/Seydltiz wolf pack worked on the 26 second fleet of the Orange Team. Yamato and Bismark worked together. Ultimately in the 2nd sortie Tom’s WW I Montanna became a high priority target and took a ton of damage. When backing out after emptying the bow sidemount, the Yamato was pushed sideways by the side by a flurry of ships that came to shoot their own targe of opportinity. The stern of the Yamato pushed sideways in the parallel Montanna and it sank with about 10 seconds left on her five. Thought it was recorded as a combat sink, both really wished the nudge wouldn’t have happened as both captains were confident: Tyler that he had done enough to sink the Montanna, and Tom that he had done just enough to survive. After the battle Tyler, Tim, and Tom T looked all over for Lou’s convoy ship that had gone missing the day before. After significant searching it wasn’t found. A light rain moved in with cooler air temps canceling the plans for pool time. Brandon brought Bob to the air port to fly home in time for weekend softball for his daughter Emily. Several of us hung out and talked smart for a few hours before heading to “the Lodge” for the awards banquet. Overall the week was great. Matthew served as CD and did a great job. Orange fleet won the week with strong performance in both Campaign Battles, though Green had several fleet battle wins as well. Tyler was fortunate to be awarded Most Feared, Best of class 7, Best of Scale Convoy.

 

On Saturday we woke up at 5 and headed out by around 5:20 AM. The drive was long but thankfully uneventful. After dropping off Owen Tyler finally arrived home just before 3AM. Tyler is motivated to rebalance his Hikawa Maru class convoy ships as well as the Akagi who sits a little stern heavy, as well as get the Shinano together before next year.

 

-Tyler

 

NATS 2026 from Glenn Brandon Smith’s perspective

 

Nats 2026 Report from Supermarina regarding the week of battles in Statesboro, GA by RM Duilio, RM Vittorio Veneto, MN Liberte, USS Duluth, and USS Freighter Four.

 

 

 

The week started slow with Duilio playing stern to stern with the Orange Fleet North Carolina and Bismarck first sortie on Monday. The sortie quickly devolved into a melee with an Alabama and Iron Duke going down quickly. Duilio played with Rick’s cruiser and Chris Pearce in Tim’s cruiser as well, getting a few hits on both ships before calling 5. Second sortie continued the theme, this time with North Carolina more aggressively engaging to get in some triples. Duilio managed to find some sidemount shots into an Orange Fleet QE (Brian K probably). The sortie wound down with rounds still in the magazine and nowhere to drop them.

 

Second battle on Monday Duilio had tentatively agreed to try and work with the Montana to trap one of the slower ships on the Orange Fleet. However, this was stymied by a dying transmitter battery and Duilio sat the first sortie out. The Green admiral Lou allowed the Italians to enter the battle in second sortie. Montana was able to attract a lot of attention from the Yamato and Bismarck but Duilio got off numerous funny gun shots into the Bismarck. Duilio also tangled with the Orange Nagato putting numerous holes in the battleships. The battle finally wound down with Duilio being one of the last ships off the water.

 

 

 

Tuesday Morning saw Fleet Battle #3. Once again Duilio and Montana were nominally to work together, but the battle almost immediately devolved as the Texas attracted all the attention of the Yamato and Bismarck, eventually taking over 80 belows before sinking. Fortunately the admiral survived the sinking. Once again Duilio tangled with North Carolina and seemed to get the better of the larger American ship. Soon after, Duilio came upon a pair of German pre-dreadnought battleships seemingly adrift. After a few probing shots, Duilio dumped the rest of a sidemount magazine into the stricken vessel which later sank.

 

Tuesday afternoon had been scheduled for the first campaign battle, but due to a lengthy search for a missing ship the moss had been stirred up so badly it was decided to swap the convoys for another fleet battle. So, Duilio was readied for another action. As it turned out, the first sortie would be fairly similar with stern to stern with the North Carolina and various swirling battles with the Orange Iron Duke and the pre-dreads. The second sortie went much faster as numerous ships were either not able to make the sortie at all or immediately called five. Duilio sailed from one end of the pond to the other when the whole reason for the convoys being canceled, moss, reared its ugly head. Matt’s Seydlitz had become hopelessly mossed and was almost immobile. Duilio slid up along the port side and fired a few rounds. Suddenly Bob in the Nagato slid up the Starboard side and started dumping a magazine. Seeing that the ‘lets try not to shoot up the other port polar bear people’ was off…Duilio fed almost the entire 75 mag into the German battlecruiser which sank shortly after. It was a nice cap to two battles that felt like the momentum had shifted to the Green Fleet.

 

 

 

Wednesday hosted the usual cruiser battle, where class 1-3 ships take the center stage. This nats was no different as cruisers of all sizes, destroyers, and predreadnoughts faced off in a hot flag vs no flag battle. The Liberte participated but almost immediately the guns started glitching. Later discovered to be a corroded servo lead, the little Frenchie still twisted and turned, but honestly did not perform well. She was too tall and didn’t turn quite well enough to really mix it up with the other predreads and her slow speed meant she sometimes was at the mercy of the much faster cruisers. The final insult came when the board finally shut down from the corroded signal wire and the Liberte sank with about 2 minutes left in her 5. Fortunately Admiral Steve wanted the little Frenchie and he purchased the ship. In a twist, the new light cruiser Eugenio di Savoia was acquired and the guts from the Frenchie would go into the new cruiser.

 

The evils of night battle were told, but Owen still decided to participate and added another chapter to the novel of ‘night battle sucks!’

 

 

 

Thursday would be back to back Campaign Battles and finally the Mighty Vittorio Veneto would make her appearance in combat. But first, the voyages of USS Freighter Four had to take place. 6 Runs, 3 forward and 3 return, were completed with only the occasional hassle from Orange cruisers. With only a few minutes left in Campaign the mighty Vittorio Veneto entered the fray. A ripple of triples hassled an Orange freighter and then as time ticked down, Vittorio Veneto and Bismarck just unleashed a sidemount at each other with both ships only pumping lightly after. Thus ended first campaign!

 

Second campaign would begin after an extended lunch period with delicious sandwiches and chips. Vittorio Veneto was patched and readied for another sortie. This time, Owen wanted to run his convoy so I took over USS Duluth for cruiser duties early. Owen had managed to sink the cruiser immediately in convoy one so the bar was set acceptably low for being the best Duluth captain. As soon as convoy started, Duluth, Bermuda, and the two Gloires smashed the targets, something that did not get done until halfway through the first campaign. Low on ammo, Duluth fired a few salvos at an Orange LST and called five. Duluth reloaded and went back out, looking to dump some stern guns. Enter the Orange fleet convoy with cranes on it. Duluth and Bermuda ripped the freighter open and she sank before finishing the run. Once again out of ammo and gas, Duluth got off its five without further trouble, a successful re-debut for Owen’s cruiser. After patching the big two-funnel Liner for another run, it was time for Vittorio Veneto to enter battle this time with more time to play. Almost immediately the Orange hospital ship was spotted sailing a return run.  Numerous triple stern salvoes rippled the hospital ship but it limped into port with no hope of continuing without major patching, effectively canceling a final run before convoy ended. As time ticked down, and no more new convoy runs would complete it became imperative to get the last few ships through into port. Vittorio Veneto spotted a dark grey orange LST and maneuvered to fire on it with the B turret sidemount. Some of the best sounding shots of the whole week hammered the little transport, the blast pushing it sideways preventing a ‘touch’ call. Moments before campaign would end the little LST slipped beneath the waves as Vittorio Veneto sailed proudly on having interdicted a trio of enemy transports in the brief time she was on the water. The big Italian Battlewagon had a spectacular debut in campaign.

 

 

Friday dawned cool and cloudy, easily the best weather of the week. The Green fleet, having fought back into contention to win with victories in both Fleet battles on Tuesday, was feeling good despite being down after Orange had run convoys nonstop during the first campaign. The battle began and several ships on both sides were missing, the long week having depleted supplies and parts. Duilio found her usual dance partners with North Carolina and the cruisers. This time Duilio found a great angle and chewed into North Carolina’s starboard side, drilling about a dozen belows without much return fire. Right at the end of the sortie, Duilio managed to put a few rounds into one of the pre-dreadnoughts which later sank. Second, and last, sortie was started with a fairly quick turnaround. This time Duilio moved to the far right of the pond as Bismarck and Yamato were otherwise occupied. Duilio tangled with Grossaint’s Nagato, landing some good hits without much in return. Tommy’s little German battleship absorbed a few Italian sidemounts too. The pesky cruisers showed up but they didn’t have much ammo. As ships started to go on five, an Orange Iron Duke showed up, hounded by a friendly Erin as well. Trapped on shore, Duilio slid in and dumped most of the 75 round sidemount into the Iron Duke, which later recorded 19 belows on the side Duilio had smashed. With the Orange fleet off the water, Duilio was one of the last ships off the water.

 

 

All in all, it was a long but great week with few issues and mechanical breakdowns (at least for the Italians).

 

-Glenn Brandon Smith-

 

 

Port Polar Bear September Battle Fri/Sat/Sun - September 11, 12, 13 2026

 

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