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

NATS 2026 - June 15-19 2026

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