Beam Reach

First Day of School

My first day of school normally starts with 150 nervous 7th graders inquiring what middle school math will look like and what they will be covering this year. I have taken a sabatical this year and I have to say that it has been very weird to not go through the steps of buying new school/teacher clothes, setting up my classroom, and mentally preparing myself for a brand new year. I am actually in the reverse roll, because I’m currently enrolled in Beam Reach: Marine Science and Sustainability School. I’m currently on beautiful San Juan Island and on the waters of the Salish Sea for the next 10 weeks. I’m so looking forward to new experiences and hope to explore the idea of a masters in Marine Biology. We were at Lime Kiln today doing an introductory activity and J,K,and L were just south of us. I will have to admit that I was not a very focused student, because my eyes were more in my binoculars than in my notebook. Smile! Please ask me questions about the classes I am taking and I would love to share in more detail. I’ll give you a quick overview of my schedule so you know when I’m here at the Friday Harbor Marine Labs. Call me or email me, I’m not that far away. So, for the next three weeks we will be here on land; formulating our research question and laying out the proposal for our project. Then we will go to sea for two weeks and try out our methodology, sampling protocols, and get familiar with our sustainable life at sea. We’ll follow this with one week back at the labs, analyzing our preliminary data and verifying that we are on track with our research project. Then we head out for three weeks at sea (eeee…I can’t tell you how excited I am for that). Finally, our last week will be on land. Looking over our data, analyzing it, and writing up our findings. Our presentations will be to a high stakes audience to reveal all that we had studied and learned. Well, I’m off to class for now. Enjoy the sunshine!
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First impressions from the first Beam Reach

It has been marvellous and frustrating to be administering Beam Reach from Seattle on the first days of the fall 2006 program. I feel a simultaneous urge to rush up and be part of every moment in the syllabus and a great satisfaction that the Beam Reach ship is sailing along without me being involved in adjusting every line.

I hope this first blogbook entry will inspire new students and instructors alike to share their experiences on-line. It really is a rare thing these days to delve deeply into a critical issue and one’s own curiosities. That our research theme centers on orcas, an inherently awe-inspiring and communicative species, just makes the opportunity that much more intriguing.

I’d like to share two journal entries I made almost precisely a year ago, during the first couple days of the first Beam Reach program. They drive home the sense I have again today: that we are just scratching the surface of our human involvement in the decline and unprecedented alteration of the oceans.

Sunday 08/21/2005 05:30

“How much does an ecosystem have to change before we alter our values to restore it? To answer the question, one really has to do two difficult things: understand the ecosystem well enough to determine which human actions are driving the change; and discern what changes in human behavior will benefit the ecosystem at least cost.

Beam Reach is all about addressing this question in the marine environment through sustainability science. This is daunting because it is technologically difficult to analyze how marine ecosystems function and to quantify the costs/benefits of human actions within them. It is also a challenge because scientists are used to understanding a ecosystem problem, but have not traditionally studied how to solve it (through economic, technological, and/or political methods).

In the Pacific Northwest, we have an interesting range of cases in which this broad question has been tackled. Invariably they begin with the decline of a species — whether high-profile or obscure — and evolves to a broad investigation of its ecosystem. At present, we are considering a charismatic megafaunum, the southern resident orcas. We are also currently struggling with another deeply valued animal, the wild salmon. We can report the successful restoration of the iconic American bald eagle. Great sums have been invested recently in assessing the Stellar sea lion, which most people don’t value in particular. And we are still evaluating the status of the northern spotted owl, a species that many people hate as much as orcas used to be reviled.

If it turns out that noise from cargo ships is the main risk to orcas staying in residence, at what point will human individuals and society mitigate the acoustic impact? Will orcas, inherently wonderful and with ecotourism value of about $1M/animal, be compared economically with the goods being transported through the great ports of our region? How much would it cost to make those ships quiet?”

Wednesday 08/24/2005 (2:05am 8/25)

“It is strange to reside in such a beautiful marine setting while reading articles and hearing speakers declare emphatically that marine ecosystems are in collapse. With a nostalgia as invigorating as the fresh evening air, I stepped out onto the Fernald Lab deck to gaze at the half-full, waning moon. Friday Harbor rippled in the dark waters and the wet beach glistened beneath me. After strolling back to the duplex, I found emailed news about marine extinctions and prepared to introduce 2 speakers who document the decline of pelagic fish and orcas in our oceans.

Bleary eyed, I ease into bed wondering where the southern residents are tonight. Are we really helping the whales, as I tell my son Liam when he asks what I do with Beam Reach?”

Just as I came across unnerving news regarding the marine plight last year, today I came across an L.A. Times series called “Altered Oceans.” Reading through the part on ocean acidification while my newborn daughter snored beside me, I was felt downright worried about the anthropogenic perturbations of the globe we are set to experience in the 21st century. Nevertheless, I am optimistic that Beam Reach is a small step in the right direction and I’m very excited to continue contemplating how to forge a sustainable relationship between humanity and the seas.

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First Days

I just got here to Friday Harbor and it is beautiful. I hope all would be able to have the experience I am about to embark but realize they cannot, so I am to describe what I learn and feel and hope I do it justice. This has been my first access to the internet so I will keep it short. I saw my first wild orca today through binoculars. They were so far away and I can’t wait to get a safe closer look.

I would like to quote our presidente Scott Viers who wrote in his blog:

“How much does an ecosystem have to change before we alter our values to restore it? To answer the question, one really has to do two difficult things: understand the ecosystem well enough to determine which human actions are driving the change; and discern what changes in human behavior will benefit the ecosystem at least cost”

I hope to get more than just the tip of the iceberg to those two difficult things and even more to do it in ten weeks.
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The Open Boat

I think a tradition was born last Friday, July 28. Sailing, learning, and fun were had by all at our “open boat” event. Captain Todd Shuster gave tours and sails on his recently re-powered catamaran. Now the west coast’s only biodiesel-electric charter sailing vessel. We listened to an underwater hydrophone (wow, it can be loud under water!), watched video footage from the Beam Reach program last fall, heard recorded killer whale sounds, and we all met interesting people. Here are some photos from the event.

Everyone marveled at the near silence of the Gato Verde’s electric motors. In fact, the only real reason you knew the motors were on was because we were moving, but the sails were down. There was wind so we were also treated to sailing under wind power alone.

Beam Reach alums Celia Barrosso and Laura Christoferson were on hand to tell people what it was like for them to study killer whales for ten weeks — five of which were at sea aboard the Gato Verde. For both it remains a highlight of their lives and continues to provide inspiration and guidance to their careers.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on the day. Post a comment to this article so everyone can learn from you and hopefully be inspired to attend next year’s event.

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Open Boat 2006

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Orcinus orca: our neighbors with fins

The context:

The best kept secret in all civilizations is that we are animals! We are medium-sized mammals, who just happen to have evolved the ability and the need to construct vast symbolic systems to define ourselves, and now we can’t see our way out of our own systems, so we fight each other to the death to defend them. Hoisted on our own petards! Our daily lives are dominated by humans acting badly toward one another while ignoring and trampling the natural wonders that are the real foundations of our own lives.

But there is at least one other species that has also evolved the capacity to construct symbolic systems of self-definition and live according to those rules within distinct cultures sustainably for thousands of generations: Orcinus orca. We can learn much from the orca. If you are skeptical, you should be. That’s the scientific method, along with reliance on the accumulated evidence and the published work of other scientists.

Below:

The astounding natural history of Orcinus orca. First, a bit of history to set up the seismic shift in our perception of the orca.

When NOAA Fisheries listed the Southern Resident orca community, native to Washington State and British Columbia waters, as endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) earlier this year, a new definition of the orca emerged from the process that officially revised our basic understanding of the species.

Before NOAA could list J, K and L pods as endangered, they first had to establish that this community of orcas is a “distinct population segment” (DPS), as defined by the ESA. In 1978, in response to the need to protect particular runs (not just species) of salmon in the Pacific Northwest, the ESA was amended so they could list a subspecies, and if necessary, a loosely defined “distinct population segment.” Congress instructed the Secretary to exercise this authority “…sparingly and only when the biological evidence indicates that such action is warranted.”

To be considered a distinct population segment, a population must be reproductively isolated from other conspecific (same species) populations, and it must be important for the evolutionary legacy of the species. Until the Southern resident orcas were listed, only geographic separation, at least during breeding, could cause a population to be reproductively isolated from other populations of the same species. For example, Sacramento River Spring run Chinook salmon are geographically, and therefore reproductively, separated from Upper Columbia River Spring run Chinook, and so are listed separately. (Southern Resident orcas have historically depended on both Chinook runs to survive, and both are endangered.)

Trouble is, Southern Resident orcas cross paths every day with Transient orcas, and in fact are in no way separated from Northern resident orcas, or Offshore orcas for that matter. The various populations could easily interbreed, but they don’t. The field of biology doesn’t account for this kind of willful reproductive separation. It tells us something is at work here determining behavior that has never before been found in any animal other than humans. That factor is culture.

NOAA has never before had to deal with an animal that demonstrated culture, so in June, 2002, NOAA partially dodged the issue by designating the Residents as “depleted” under the less stringent Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), thus avoiding the troublesome ESA language. NOAA stated that although the Southern Residents “compose a distinct population,” and “face a relatively high risk of extinction,” they were not significant to the species worldwide. If they went extinct, NOAA said, another orca community could simply move in and occupy their habitat. The MMPA listing triggered a lawsuit in which the judge was presented with a wealth of evidence that Southern residents are a unique and irreplaceable cultural community, which prompted the judge to instruct NOAA to review it all and reconsider their decision not to list the orcas under the ESA. NOAA did reconsider, and concluded that the Southern residents are indeed a cultural community, and needed protection under the ESA. Here’s the evidence, and what it all adds up to.

The strongest evidence for culture lies in the vocal dialects of resident pods; each pod has a distinctive set of 7-17 `discrete’ calls (Ford 1991a; Strager 1995). These dialects are maintained despite extensive associations between pods. Some pods share up to 10 calls and pods which share calls can be grouped together in acoustic ‘clans,’ suggesting another level of population structure. Ford found four distinct clans within two resident communities (Northern and Southern), and suggested that these call variations are a result of dialects being passed down through vocal learning, and being modified over time. Thus, given the lack of dispersal, acoustic clans may reflect common matrilineal ancestry, and the number of calls any two pods share may reflect their relatedness. In addition to these pod-specific calls, orcas make a wide variety of “variable” calls, especially during intense socializing, that defy description. No similarities have been found in the calls made by different communities.

Other evidence for culture includes:

• Unlike any other mammal known, both male and female offspring remain with their mother and her family their entire lives. There is no dispersal.
• Diet is strictly limited. Though they are the top marine predator, Southern Residents eat only fish.
• Reproduction is strictly limited. Mating occurs only within the community, and between, but not within, pods.
• Orcas live in family groups believed to be led by elder matriarchs. Two or more matrilines may form a pod.
• Female orcas may live more than four decades after birthing their last calf at about age 40-45. Only orcas and humans exhibit such a long post-reproductive lifespan.
• A similar pattern of distinct and separate cultural orca communities has been found worldwide, demonstrating unique vocalizations, diets, social systems and habitat usage.

A landmark paper published in 2001 summed it all up thusly: “The complex and stable vocal and behavioural cultures of sympatric groups of killer whales (Orcinus orca) appear to have no parallel outside humans and represent an independent evolution of cultural faculties” (Rendell and Whitehead, 2001).

All of the above leaves little doubt that for Southern Resident orcas, cultural traditions transcend instinct, genetics, environment, or individual learning, and to some extent actually determine evolutionary development. In years to come scientists may be describing not just physical attributes and interesting behaviors in our friendly neighborhood orcas, but their cultural identities as well.

Now here’s the amazing part: Nobody seems to care. At least nobody seems to be able to think about the perspective that we have indigenous cultures of orcas inhabiting the waters just below the waves out our windows. I’ve been amplifying and broadcasting the progress of scientific thought on orca cultures since 2001 when Rendell and Whitehead published “Culture in Whales and Dolphins.” I’ve done a poster display at one conference, an oral presentation at another, I’ve written op-eds using the culture perspective to understand A73/Springer and L98/Luna, plus news releases on our website and numerous powerpoint presentations, but so far I haven’t seen a glimmer of curiosity or interest in developing the view that orcas are a culture unto themselves on a par with human native cultures. The fact of orca culture is showing up in all sorts of media, from Nature magazine to today’s Sunday Seattle Times, but where are the scientists and thinkers? I would think there would be some consideration of where this realization of orca cultures, now enshrined in Federal law and mass media, is taking us. What are the theoretical supports from the social sciences, and what are the implications for human activities and attitudes toward orcas? Anybody game?

Howard Garrett
Orca Network
Greenbank, WA

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A biodiesel-electric sailing catamaran for orcas, research, and education

Authored by: Captain Todd Shuster and Dr. Scott Veirs
A new type of boat will study the orcas and their environment this fall. The Gato Verde is a 13-meter (42-foot) sailing catamaran that recently became the first biodiesel-electric charter vessel on the West Coast. Last winter, dual 27-horsepower diesel engines were replaced with two electric motors, extra batteries, and a 14-KW genset burning biodiesel. The re-powered Gato Verde will serve ecotourists through Gato Verde Adventure Sailing out of Bellingham, Washington, this summer and the Beam Reach marine science and sustainability school this fall when students will study orcas and acoustics.

We’re confident that ecotourists will appreciate the changes. Sea trials indicate that propulsion noise and vibration is dramatically reduced in the cockpit and hulls. Diesel fumes and exhaust are gone and the increased propeller pitch and extra blade have enhanced maneuverability in close quarters. The total mass of the propulsion and power system increased only ~100-kg, and distributing the extra batteries in the bows re-balanced the load and improved hull performance.

Teachers in boat-based programs like Beam Reach and researchers who study orca acoustics will also value the quieter system. Class discussions in the cockpit will benefit from the ability to transit quietly under electric power. Fumes and exhaust from the biodiesel genset will be less distracting than fumes from petroleum diesel and its combustion. Acoustic observations will be much easier to make while moving under power; last fall, extended, continuous recordings were only acquired when the wind and currents allowed us to sail parallel to the traveling orcas.

Noise reduction in engine compartment and underwater

Lynch motor mounted on the saildrive.

The modifications significantly decreased the in-air sound pressure levels (SPL) in the engine compartments. Using a sound meter from Radio Shack held horizontally in different parts of the port engine compartment, we measured sound pressure levels before and after the re-powering of Gato Verde. In comparing the conventional diesel propulsion system with the electric one (powered by batteries only, no generator), sound pressure levels (C-averaging setting) were reduced at all measurment locations:

Sound pressure level in decibels (dB)
	upper compartment	lower compartment
	base	top	loudest point
Yanmar diesels	94	105	124
Electric only	83	89	97
Difference	-11	-16	-27

For reference, a -6 dB shift is SPL is generally perceived as a halving of loudness. All measurements were made on the horizontal centerline of the compartments, except the loudest point measurements which were at (~1 cm from) the the air intake on the diesel engines and at the outboard base of the sail drive in the hybrid system.Preliminary, qualitative observations indicate that underwater propulsion noise is reduced, as well. Quantification of this improvement will have to await re-occupation this fall of the site where the diesel engine noise was measured. If the noise reduction is substantial and the economic benefits are made clear, then Gato Verde may provide other commercial and private vessels with an inspiring example of technology that can reduce underwater noise in orca habitat.

Engineering and performance

Captain Todd holding a Lynch motor.

Gato Verde is a 1995 Fountaine Pajot Venezia 42 Catamara (LOA 42’, LWL 40’+, beam 23’, dry weight 19000lbs, full capacity weight 23500lbs). The previous propulsion system consisted of dual Yanmar 27hp (3gm30) engines with saildrives. Each Yanmar was replaced with an “off-the-shelf” Thoosa 9000 system. The muscle of each electric system is a Lynch motor and the brains are a 4 quadrant (regen) Navitas controller. There is a Link 10 Battery monitor on each system. Each of the two battery packs consist of four 12V Group 31 AGM batteries providing 105AH @ 48V to each motor. The motors are mounted to the old Yanmar SD20 sail drives and are turning new 3 blade 17”X15” props. The saildrive reduction is 2.6:1 and was used without modification by mounting the motor to the existing power input shaft with a custom fitting.

The new biodiesel-electric-sail power system allows Gato Verde to match (or better) previous motoring performance while decreasing fuel & lubricating oil consumption by up to 50%. Additionally, the battery pack enables Gato Verde to motor silently for up to 3 hours. When extended motoring is required, the on-board biodiesel generator will provide enough electricity to power the electric motors continously. Based on the volume of the fuel tank, we estimate an endurance of 125 hours/tank or about 625 miles. Finally, the propulsion motors will be able to re-charge the battery bank when under sail by letting the props spin turning the motors into generators.

The Thoosa 9000W system was chosen for several reasons. The system is simple and uses an efficient 4-quadrant regeneration controller. Given the risks of early adoption, it was comforting that the Thoosa system can be upgraded with increased voltage if extra power is ever needed. It was convenient that the Thoosa importer (NGC Marine in Racine, WI) could provide the two systems within the desired installation window. Finally, Hank at NGC Marine provided compelling performance projections (16×16 propeller; 8 batteries [Group 31 AGM] totaling 210AH) with and without the gen-set running:

Without gen-set		With 12KW DC gen-set
speed (knots)	Endurance (min)	speed (knots)	% battery assist
4.5	130	7.1	0%
5.0	095
6.0	050	8.1	100%

For comparison, the Yanmar engines propelled Gato Verde at 7.4 knots in calm conditions @ 3400 RPM.The bio/diesel gen-set consists of an eCycle DC generator built on a 3-cylinder 23 HP Kubota D902. The water-cooled motor/generator puts out over 12KW @ 58V DC. The buck-boost regulated system is more expensive than diode charge regulation, but it will put out the full charging voltage for the 48V battery pack no matter the RPM of the engine. Changing RPM changes current, not voltage. Thus, the generator speed can be reduced or increased to provide the exact amount of energy needed for any given conditions. For battery charging or boosting, the generator can be run at low speeds using less fuel and creating less noise. In a situation where maximum power is needed the generator speed can be increased to meet the demand.

Sea trials were conducted on April 6, 2006. The following performance data was taken in calm conditions the running times are estimates with around 20% reserve:

(Note: the last 2 data points are unevenly plotted in the range.) Gato Verde’s first charter with the electric drive system was a great success. Since the DC generator parts had still not arrived and a small gasoline AC generator was used for battery charging. The regeneration under sail worked whenever we were sailing over 6.4 knots. We don’t have detailed data on speed vs. current output yet but measured as much as 11 amps at one point when our boat speed was approximately 7.8 knots. We’re looking forward to getting out in a good blow to do some serious data collection.

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