“A5?”

“You sank my canoe!”

Up-and-coming on the ISU intramural scene is Battleship H2O, a sport that seeks to recreate the childhood board game on much larger scale. Though the game is only in its second year here at Iowa State, it is already attracting lots of attention.

“This year we’ve got around 105 teams,” said Nathan Pick, coordinator for intramurals. “Even though that puts us a little down from last year’s total of 120, we’re still really happy with the overall turnout.”

What really gets the students interested, Pick said, is the general concept of the game. Teams of three sit in canoes placed in the pool at State Gym and, just like the board game, try to sink their opponents’ boats.

“I used to play the [board] game a lot with my little brother,” said Georgia Kolf, freshman in chemical engineering and captain of team Fosmark. “So when I heard there was a real-life Battleship game, I thought it sounded really fun.”

The free-for-all approach to Battleship H2O means that strategy factors into this live-action battleship game much more than its plastic predecessor.

“What makes H2O even more exciting is the chance players get to defend themselves,” Pick said. “Any player can bail out their boat to try and stay above water. Some teams even designate a guy to do just that.”

Some teams, such as defending champions 2.6 No Bigger No Smaller, found success with an entirely different strategy and are looking to make that work again.

“Last year, we sort of teamed up with other teams,” said Jared Kadolph, senior in animal science and captain of the returning champions. “We would sink other boats first and then when we got to the finals we just sank them as fast as we could.”

Team Fosmark, on the other hand, prefers an offensive approach to the game over a tactical plan.

“All we want to do is sink the other teams,” Kolf said. “We’re just going to do it as fast as possible and hope we don’t get taken out first.”

Though the game is mostly about the fun, students can still get a workout in this small-scale naval warfare.

“Most kids are having a lot of fun right off the bat,” Pick said. “But once you get toward the end of the round, you see students getting pretty tired from throwing around those 5-gallon buckets full of water.”

For Kadolph, an ISU intramurals veteran, Battleship H2O is near the top of his favorites.

“I do quite a few of intramurals with the same group of friends,” Kadolph said. “This one is completely different from the others and we all have a lot of fun.”

Pick echoes the sentiment of uniqueness, citing that while the sport is bizarre, it is also a unique opportunity to play this game.

“Sure it’s weird,” Pick said. “But it’s a ton a fun. You’re really not going to play this anywhere else.”