Next battle is scheduled for June 12th (we dropped June 5th out). Time and place (unless any objections) will be 11am at Swan Creek. As always, try to come ready to go on the water at 11am. Joe, Alex and I are planning to be at the Bellevue Downtown Park pond this monday (Memorial Day) at about 1pm to fly the flag and do some cruising. Anyone who wants to stop by is welcome to.
Well yesterday was a fun little battle. A bit chaotic at times, and we were definatley slower than our usual in terms of getting sorties going, but it seemed to work out ok. Partially this was probably my fault for showing up an hour+ late... We had a lot of rams in this battle, some do to overexcited kids, others due to theu sual causes such as inattention, and more than usual from me. I tried to apologize to people as I rammed them, I wasn't having a spectacular day on the water, being overly tired and having a new ship did not make for good results. We had 1 sink that I know of, several out of control issues. The Maru was the only sink that I was aware of, it came right after it completed the last lap of its run and technically the sortie was already over when it sank at the shore. Unfortunately it sank because of a ram from me as it was making the final loop around the buoy. We had on the water: Westfalen, Insufferable (for a few moments until it lost control / bind repeatedly), Suffren, Bismarck, Scharnhorst, Graf Spee, the Maru and the Derfflinger. This was the Derfflinger's first combat and I was still assembling things when I got to the pond and sat out the first sortie, barely got into the 2nd sortie from which I had to quickly withdraw after the rudder servo popped its arm off and I had to go find a servo screw for it (thanks Alex!). In the last sortie of the day the Maru's mast was snapped from a shot by Joe's Graf Spee, I'm impressed that it has taken a year to do that. Andrew caught it on video so I'll try to clean it up and get a slow motion clip of it up on youtube.
I just got back from my conference last week in Seattle. A lot of internet marketers think warship combat is a really cool idea (I was able to use a couple of good photos in my presentation). Stephen and I are still looking at coming up there around the weekend of July 30, and we may be able to get a couple of spectators gathered too if there's a battle that weekend. We should have our plans firmed up this week and will let you know.
There were a lot of first for the Bismarck this weekend. I got three huge holes caused by rams that could have sank me (if I didnt have two pumps). I also got more hits below the waterline in one battle that I have got in the last year and a half. Nice job guys. Nick, I am completly free at the end of the month for a battle. Maybe that would be better to schedule one when Keri and Stephan come up here.
Think one of the kids was driving the Suffren. The scharnie beat me up with a few rams, but seeing as i did the Maru in (my own ship at least) I can't complain too much. I never even checked the Scharhorst, Graf Spee and Suffren for damage after sorties. I know I landed hits on all three, but I'm unsure if they were good penetrating hits or not.
the graf spee sustained damage in all battles except one pretty much. last battle probable sustained the most. a lot or most hits were above the water line. got a good ram out in the middle of pond the last battle, don't even remember by what boat, things were happening fast, thought for sure she was sunk, listing heavy to port, but pump brought her back luckily. could not believe it really, though listing a bit thee rest of the battle.
