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What are by-the-wind sailors?<\/h2>
These electric blue critters live in warm and temperate oceans around the world. They can be up to 10cm long and each individual is actually a colony of organisms. <\/p>
They have an oval disc \u2013 called the float \u2013 with short tentacles hanging below and a stiff diagonal fin above, which acts like a sail.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>
According to\u00a0the Marine Life Information Network (marLIN)<\/a>, \u201cthe direction of the sail along the float determines which way\u00a0Velella velella<\/em>\u00a0will travel. If the sail runs north-west to south-east along the float it will drift left of the wind direction, if the sail runs south-west to north-east it will drift right of the wind direction.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>
![\"By-the-wind](\"https:\/\/c02.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/47\/2024\/04\/By-the-wind-sailors.jpeg\")
By-the-wind sailors can be up to 10cm long. Credit: Getty<\/figcaption><\/figure> What causes these mass strandings? <\/h2>
Strong winds around the Channel Islands are probably the cause of these sailor colonies washing up on beaches.\u00a0\u201cThey are at the mercy of the winds and so are usually found washed up in their hundreds, or sometimes even thousands, after stormy winter weather,\u201d says the\u00a0Wildlife Trusts<\/a>.<\/p>
By-the-wind sailors are in the Cnidaria group of animals, meaning they\u2019re related to jellyfish<\/a>, corals<\/a> and sea anemones. <\/p>
\u201cCnidarians have two body forms: the umbrella-shaped, tentacle-trailing ‘medusa’, your classic jellyfish; and ‘polyps’, such as sea anemones that typically live attached to the seabed,\u201d explains\u00a0Cathy Lucas<\/a>, a marine biology professor at University of Southampton.\u00a0\u201cVelella<\/em>\u00a0is a colony of specialised individual polyps, much like their fellow sailors the Portuguese Man o\u2019 War. Instead of living attached to rocks on the seabed, the water surface has become its substrate,\u201d she says.\u00a0<\/p>
![\"By-the-wind](\"https:\/\/c02.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/47\/2024\/04\/By-the-wind-sailor.jpg\")
By-the-wind sailors are related to jellyfish, corals and sea anemones. Credit: Getty<\/figcaption><\/figure> Their stinging tentacles \u2013 which are usually harmless to humans \u2013 help them catch their prey: usually\u00a0plankton\u00a0or small fish. Meanwhile, they are food for other ocean animals including blue dragon sea slugs (Glaucus atlanticus<\/em>) and purple snails (Janthina janthina<\/em>).<\/p>
By-the-wind sailors can\u2019t survive out of the water so those that wash up will die on the tideline. Mass strandings like this can happen anywhere when the wind pushes the creatures onshore but it\u2019s odd to see this in Guernsey in April, says local marine biologist Richard Lord: \u201cWe often see them, but it is a little unusual to have them at this time of year as they normally get blown ashore in the autumn.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>
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