Dubious science from those who should know better

[Calif. Ted]

A discussion on another forum reminded me of incidents where a person you'd expect to know better presents a really weird theory as fact. First up is a surveyor:
I was at a damage survey for a boat that had been hit by another during a race. It was valued at about $170,000 and had a dark blue Imron hull with red bottom paint, really pretty. One of the surveyors took me aside and said "They really should repaint the bottom blue or green"
"Why is that ? Do those colors perform better ? The red and blue is classic"
"No, Whales and other sea creatures see red as a threat and act aggressively, it's a well known fact that most whale attacks have been on boats with red bottom paint"
Whale Attacks ? Like the Essex ? I wanted to ask him what color the sky was on his home planet but I was speechless.

 

[JamesG161]

Well a Whale of a story but....
"Dr Jeffery Fasick, assistant professor of biological sciences at Kean University in New Jersey who has researched marine mammal eyes, agrees. Whales have only one ‘cone’ and one ‘rod’, both of which are sensitive to light in the blue/green range. “They match their cones and rods to the colour of the water. To them, everything is bright,” he says. “This means that anything that looks blue or green to the human eye is invisible to whales. The one colour that whales can see as a dark shape in their bright, watery environment is red. Copepods, the main food source for right whales, are red, allowing them to see the group as a dark mass.”"

No worries here, mine is blue.
Jim...

PS: I hope that boat is not shaped like a "Copepod"

 

[Don S/V ILLusion]

Anyone who has ever dived a reasonable depth under a boat knows it's very difficult to discern bottom paint color. Even white looks dark against the ocean surface when viewed from below. And people can differentiate among colors better than can whales, except maybe Moby Dick and some members of the Senate Judiciary Ccommittee who see everything through highly 'colored' lenses.

 

[markwbird]

How the boat looks to a human is completely irrelevant. Whales eyes are different and whales brains are different.

 

[Don S/V ILLusion]

How the boat looks to a human is completely irrelevant. Whales eyes are different and whales brains are different.

That's true and we both already knew that. My only purpose in commenting is to explain the absurdity of arguing that whales perceiving more color or a greater range of color than humans who have far greater optic range capacity. Bulls are a 'different animal' -just ask any matador.

 

[markwbird]

I understand. My point is that you cannot know that it is absurd. It may be true. Based on what James G wrote it is true.

 

[Steve L22188]

Now I'm worried. My bottom paint is red VC-17. How many whales so you think a 17 sq. mile inland lake can support?
In 28 years sailing on the lake, I've never encountered a whale. But it only takes one....

 

[Charlie Jones s/v Tehani]

my bottom paint is black- and seems to attract many Dolphins and or Porpoises

 

[JimInPB]

One thing I remember from diving, is that once you are much more than about 50 or 100 feet down, there is no more red light available, so things that are red don't look red anymore.

 

[justsomeguy]

my bottom paint is black- and seems to attract many Dolphins and or Porpoises

I enjoy attracting them too. Blue ablative.

 

[agprice22]

I have dived for decades: below 70 ft is dark. You need a light to see. Even 25 ft turns colors toward gray. Bring a light, and you will see much more color.

 

[thinwater]

One thing I remember from diving, is that once you are much more than about 50 or 100 feet down, there is no more red light available, so things that are red don't look red anymore.

Then once your boat is 50-100 feet down you have nothing to worry about. One less thing.

 

[Will Gilmore]

The 65' catamaran Double Eagle II, headboats running out of Clearwater, once got attacked by a 10' mako shark and their bottom paint was blue. Of course, my brother hooking him, reeling him up to the boat and the deckhand shooting him in the tail with a 38, may have had something to do with that.
The shark got hit in the tail by a deckhand who never should have been shown where the gun was, came racing out of the cabin, pistol pointed in the air over his head, shouting to the crowd, "stand back, I got him." He hit the railing and his hands swung down towards the shark along side the boat and BANG! He didn't even take aim. We were lucky he didn't shoot the boat... or his knee... or something a little more valuable to him. The shark took off, ripping line off of the reel. Then, he turned back around and charged the boat taking a bite of the bow chine. We cut the line.

I also remember a shark nature show shortly after Jaws came out in which they stuffed a wetsuit with fish and got sharks circling it. After a while, they pulled it from the water, strapped an orange lifevest on the suit and tried that. No hesitation. The shark chomped down on the torso right across the vest immediately. Their conclusion, brought colors are a bad idea.

a person you'd expect to know better presents a really weird theory as fact.

Absolutely agree that this happens. Does anyone here think a whale, color blind or not, doesn't know a boat when he sees one? We are talking higher order socialized mammalian thinking, not a lizard brain.

-Will (Dragonfly)

 

[jssailem]

Well here is visual proof whales attack blue sail boats with red bottom paint.

Jul 20, 2010 · The pair were enjoying calm seas off the South African coast when the animal flipped into the air and smashed into their mast.
​

He did not know he was supposed to be color blind.

 

[JamesG161]

He did not know he was supposed to be color blind.

Whale was the "Stand on vessel". The sailboat was on a Port Tack.
Jim...

 

[ToddS]

Let's just suppose, hypothetically, that this guy is right, and that whale attacks are more likely in red-bottomed boats. Now think about the number of whale-attack-free hours that humans collectively spend on boats. Given the EXTREMELY low rate of whale attacks on sailboats, I'm pretty sure you could, with just a tiny bit of math, figure out that the average sailor in a red-bottomed boat has a shorter lifespan than the sailor with a blue-bottomed boat by some finite amount of time. I'm going to guess that amount of time would average out to some number measured not in years, or even hours, but probably milliseconds. So... if you can invest time/effort into something (repainting your boat) which will statistically lengthen your life by a few milliseconds, and it costs (wastes?) a half-day's worth of painting to gain the milliseconds.... that's not exactly a great ROI... And even that is giving this guy the benefit of the doubt that red actually DOES measurably increase risk...

 

[Scott T-Bird]

Thanks, you just provided another reason for Sue to refuse to go outside the inlet. I think I might forget to mention this to her.

 

[JamesG161]

I think I might forget

Let the Algae build up. Quick!

Tow a RED flag too. Toreador style.
Jim...

 

[JimInPB]

...
The shark got hit in the tail by a deckhand who never should have been shown where the gun was, came racing out of the cabin, pistol pointed in the air over his head, shouting to the crowd, "stand back, I got him." He hit the railing and his hands swung down towards the shark along side the boat and BANG! He didn't even take aim. We were lucky he didn't shoot the boat... or his knee... or something a little more valuable to him. The shark took off, ripping line off of the reel. Then, he turned back around and charged the boat taking a bite of the bow chine. We cut the line..
.

I don't know why, but the .38 special seems to be the favorite caliber of guys on shark fishing boats. I used to load some 675fps dead soft hollow-base wadcutters upside down for some shark fishermen from Long Island. That was what they wanted for their .38 & they were real specific about it. They wanted something that would hit the shark "like clobbering him with an oar", but not be punchy enough to put a hole though their boat. Maybe they had that same nitwit deckhand working for them. I agree that guy should not have had access to weapons.

 

[JimInPB]

I also remember a shark nature show shortly after Jaws came out in which they stuffed a wetsuit with fish and got sharks circling it. After a while, they pulled it from the water, strapped an orange lifevest on the suit and tried that. No hesitation. The shark chomped down on the torso right across the vest immediately. Their conclusion, brought colors are a bad idea.

If you ever come across that show again, or even if you just remember the title, I'd love to find a way to get a look at it for myself. It sounds like a real eye opener with some genuine first hand information in it.