I'm confused how the whaleship helper total power works.

For instance, my helper team (username jdom2) shows as having 178k total power.

But among my allies, no one comes close. Only one ally (Flonnezilla) has a shown help power exceeding 100k. Taon (who I see post here occasionally) has a helper team that is close to 100k. Several allies that I would expect to have very powerful helper teams seem to have numbers like 80k.

I assume that the number you see is not the number your ally sees. But which number is used in the actual performance of the whaleship?

Do you just pick the highest number and go with it?