Sei

Sei (aka The Sei Hey Whale, aka Racer Number 24, aka Speed Demon,  aka The Athlete, aka The Sea Cheetah)

Male / the athlete / 19.5 meters (64 feet or 8.5 Yao Mings) / 31 tons (19.7 Porsche 911s) / Endangered Species

Sei whale species:

The sei whale name is either pronounced like the word "say" or like the word "sigh", but for the purposes of the book, The Pod, I've chosen to pronounce his name as "say".  The sei whale can be found all over the world minus just a few places like the Indian Ocean or the Arctic.  They've been clocked going as fast as 31 miles per hour (50km/h for my friends that prefer kilometers) for short bursts.  That number puts them towards the top of the speed list for whales.  An American naturalist deemed them the cheetah of the sea because they swim extremely fast, but then tire easily.  Sei whales are baleen whales so they filter feed the same way a blue or humpback whale would.  They have somewhat deep voices, but when whalers would hit them with their harpoons they would cry out with a much higher pitch.  From a side view, these animals have very thick caudal peduncles (area between the dorsal fin and the tail) but from above they look thin and sleek.  They have a pointed head that looks to me like it was designed to cut through the water like a speed boat.  They're slick looking creatures, yet enormous.

Sei the character:

The name of the sei whale in 'The Pod' is Sei, the common name of his species.  He's the fastest whale in the ocean and he's been undefeated for many years.  He trains every day in order to maintain his racing abilities and to race like a true champion.  Competition racing is his whole focus, but a lot of his character comes from great baseball legends like Jackie Robinson who broke the color barrier with incredible poise, like Willie "The Say Hey Kid" Mays and how slick he was on and off the field, and Lou Gehrig who had to stop playing the game he loved at an early age.  Baseball is a great sport, but when you add the history of the game to an already great game, it's unrivaled.  It's not about the fast action of basketball or football or the constant motion of soccer, it's about the stories and the past that culminates into short bursts of incredible action, just like sei whales making these short bursts of speed only to slow down moments later.  This is the athletic legend all the other whales know about.        

"Sei Racing By The Dutch Dikes"