probably his paddle speed boats are more upgraded while your balloons are less upgraded so he managed to kill one before you do.

I would rather think that his tenders ¨caulked¨ the damaged ¨hulls¨ of his carriers, while yours slowly added damage in each round.

Do you think it's a matter of moral?

Tenders heal naval units. To what extent I do not know.

Yes! That's right. Not just moral. Totally missed that.

if i am right you need 12 hit to kill 1 balloon and you can hit 6 time but because of accuracy not all hit will hit the same target,
than you need like 3 round to kill the first balloon, but because of his tender his balloon will heal and not died.

Also you need to add fresh tenders into battle after some time. Because they won't heal anymore. So you gotta refresh them.
Not sure if its still like this but porbably it is. I've been away from the game for a while.

Tenders stop healing after a while? Do tell.

Well, when I first decided to play navy, I looked for some guides, On one of the most popular navy guide,(here) it says that after 6 rounds send new wave of tenders into battlefield. Then I asked around and some people on my server said the same thing, their repairing ability on ships either stops or reduces after 6 rounds so people tend to add fresh 30 tenders into field.

I dont know I never got a chance to had more than 10 rounds of sea battles so I couldn't tested this.

This is what I heard from others, can't 100 percent confirm if it is true or not. but there should be a reason for adding new wave of tenders after 6 rounds