“News and views from the premier whale watching vessel Condor Express, Santa Barbara California”
Volume 1, Number Three - May, 2011
HUMPIES ARE HERE! ...and GRAY WHALE SEASON IS JUST ABOUT OVER FOR 2011.
These whale watchers were give a whale of a welcome to the Santa Barbara Channel by a trio of very friendly Humpback Whales near the Condor Express. Photos courtesy of www.CondorExpressPhotos.com
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n Monday, May 2, 2011 the Condor Express resumes its “Island Whale Watch” schedule. Each trip lasts 4½ hours, and departs from the Sea Landing dock in Santa Barbara at 10:00am. Each trip takes nature lovers across the Santa Barbara Channel to the spring and summer whaling grounds, and depending upons sea and wind conditions, also takes a tour of beautiful Santa Cruz Island and views the entrance of the longest sea cave in the world, the famous Painted Cave. Humpback Whales first arrived in the Channel in mid-March. Their movements since that time have been fairly predictable for this time of year. Early in Humpback season we find the majority from the mid-Channel area nortward, and from Platform Habitat to the east to Platform Harvest to the west. It is always a wonderful time to see whales during the early part of the season, as the northbound Gray Whales and Humpbacks are frequently seen on the same trip. ----------------------------------------------------- Take a Peak Inside------------------------------------------------------on page 4 as we explore the mighty engine room of the Condor Express ! page 1
BETTER THAN LAST YEAR! MORE ADULT GRAY WHALES AND CALVES DURING THE 2010-2011 CENSUS.
Graph and data from: http://www.acs-la.org/GWCensus.htm
At publication (April 29, 2011), Michael Smith and his Counters have recorded 576 adults and 53 calves moving northbound at Coal Oil Point (Counter Point), Santa Barbara. ACSLA volunteers coordinated by Alisa Schulman-Janiger have logged 614 adults and 68 calves northbound at Point Vicente (Palos Verdes Peninsula). On a single day (March 21) Michael and his team broke all previous records for their location and recorded a whopping 42 adult whales. The 2010/2011 season has been truly remarkable. The graph above shows historic sightings (bars) in comparison to the current season (line). Curiously, the largest period in the southern migration this year came earlier than usual, and the return north came a bit later. The cow-calf surge which characterizes the final stages of the migration past our coastline happened a week or two later than average, but is also much larger in size. As the surface ice in the Bering, Chukchi and Beaufort Seas melts away, the mexican whales are well on their way to their summer feeding grounds. Adios amigos !
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CONDOR SCIENCE NEWS
www.CondorExpressPhotos.com/other/2011 04-15 SB Channel
HUMPBACK “WING” TUBERCLES MAY IMPROVE MANEUVERABILITY FOR HUNTING MOBILE PREY ! Sometimes we joke around and call Humpback Whales the “knobby headed monsters.” But like their bumpy rostrums, the long, winglike pectoral fins of Megaptera novaeangliae also have numerous large tubercles. These wing tubercles are located on the leading edge of the pectoral flukes. Scientists and engineers have studied these bumps and have come to some surprising conclusions that may help in the design of more efficient submarines and research submersibles. Tubercles on the leading edge of the whale’s flippers can increase useful forces and reduce drag. These perfomance enhancements are greater when the flukes attack the water at angles greater than 10 or 15 degrees, yet do not have any negative affects when the flukes are horizontal. Flukes use an increased angle of attack to enable the whale to make the tight turns necessary for feeding on schooling fish. The colored fields in the diagrams to the right show how tubercles (bottom diagram) caused the center of lift to be shifted backwards on the wing as compared to a hypothetical straight edged wing (top diagram).
Simulation of flow over a wing with a straight leading edge.
Simulation of flow over a wing with leading edge tubercles.
Like all wonderous adaptations in nature, evolution had favored pectoral fluke tubercles because they are advantageous to the life of a whale. Bumpy wings on submersible vehicles are an example of biomimicry, or humans copying and using a natural design. Literature Cited: Watts, P, and FE Fish, The Influence of passive, leading edge tubercles on wing performance. Proc. Twelfth Intl. Symp. Unmanned Untethered Submersible Technology, Durham, NH, 2001.
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“UNDER THE HOOD� OF THE CONDOR EXPRESS ENGINE ROOM ! As a catamaran, the Condor Express has two engine compartments, one in each hull. Each compartment has two engines...for a total of four. The four engines are located under two locked hatch covers on the back deck and are generally reached via ladders through locked doors on either side of the main cabin.
Each of the four engines are 740 horsepower Detroit 14-liter turbo charged diesels. They are tier-1, clean burning, low emission engines that drive Hamilton 362 water jets. Think of the Condor Express as one, big, serious water ski.
Each of the four Hamilton jets can empty a 60,000 gallon swimming pool in one minute at cruising speed. All this power moves the Condor Express across the southern California Bight at 24 - 30 knot cruising speeds. As a side note, when the boat was first tested by the Coast Guard during sea trials, it attained a speed of 43.7 knots (over 50 mph). Of course the boat was empty and does not run above 30 knots while it is in service.
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PRIMARY PRIMARY TARGET TARGET SPECIES: SPECIES: MAY MAY 2011 2011 Megaptera Megaptera novaeangliae novaeangliae the the Humpback Humpback Whale Whale !!
Humpback whale adult males measure 40-48 feet (12.2-14.6 m), adult females measure 45-50 feet (13.7-15.2 m). They weigh 25 to 40 tons (22,680-36,287 kg). Because their feeding, mating, and calving grounds are close to shore and because they are slow swimmers, the humpback whales were an easy target for early whalers. The International Whaling Commission (IWC) gave them worldwide protection status in 1966, but there were large illegal kills by the Soviets until the 1970’s. It is believed they number about 30,000-40,000 at present, or about 30-35% of the original population. Humpback whales feed on krill, small shrimp-like crustaceans, and various kinds of small fish. Each whale eats up to 1 and 1/2 tons (1,361 kg) of food a day. As a baleen whale, it has a series of 270-400 fringed overlapping plates hanging from each side of the upper jaw, where teeth might otherwise be located. These plates consist of a fingernail-like material called keratin that frays out into fine hairs on the ends inside the mouth near the tongue. The plates are black and measure about 30 inches (76 cm) in length. During feeding, large volumes of water and food can be taken into the mouth because the pleated grooves in the throat expand. As the mouth closes water is expelled through the baleen plates, which trap the food on the inside near the tongue to be swallowed.
As one can see on this map of the world, Humpbacks are widely distributed.
Š2003 Uko Gorter
(Information courtesy of the American Cetacean Society: http://www.acsonline.org)
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