I've been on and owned boats for a very long time.

Moved from windsurfing to sailing and now racing dinghy's. I also have a Gilcraft 21 (motor, not sail) that I take out on calm days.

The issue I have and always had is combating sea sickness.

It's restricted me to day trips and coastal fringes on calm days.

Any other sailors have the same affliction and what is your remedy?

Right now the only thing I take is ginger tablets and ginger beer. But what I find is in a heavy swell, it doesn't help. It's not the best skippering a dinghy in a race and hurling over the side.

echunda said..
I've been on and owned boats for a very long time.

Moved from windsurfing to sailing and now racing dinghy's. I also have a Gilcraft 21 (motor, not sail) that I take out on calm days.

The issue I have and always had is combating sea sickness.

It's restricted me to day trips and coastal fringes on calm days.

Any other sailors have the same affliction and what is your remedy?

Right now the only thing I take is ginger tablets and ginger beer. But what I find is in a heavy swell, it doesn't help. It's not the best skippering a dinghy in a race and hurling over the side.

Changing to a yacht with sails will help a lot .

+one for drugs. I use QUELL.


Steering, or anything else that moves my concentration out of the boat and to the horizon also helps.

Find a bird to watch, another boat, the coast. Watching the waves is a big no no for me.

I am also better with a reasonably full stomach of simple food, seems wrong but it work for me.

An understanding of the physiology of mal de mere goes a long way to alleviating it's unpleasant effect.
In the initial stages seasickness is entirely in your head. At later stages it can be a serious and debilitating illness but not as a result of the motion of the sea.
Nausea as a result of motion occurs because the nodule in the brain associated with balance and vision is located right next door to the food poisoning nodule. When the motion brain nodule becomes inflamed as a result of confusion between the vision sensors and the motion sensors it has the unfortunate effect of inflaming the nausea/food poisoning nodule. Our brain thinks we have food poisoning thus signals that we must discharge that poison food overboard.
Can use drugs...antihistamine motion sickness pills reduce the brain inflammation and presto no nausea, however if you are like me the side effects of the drowsiness caused by the antihistamines coupled with the caffeine in the tablets to counteract that drowsiness can lead to hallucinations and other weird and wonderful side effects. Have seen crew on offshore races having conversations with mermaids. (Lucky buggers).

An alternative management system can be employed.
1/ Comfort, must be dry and warm. Full offshore gear on early.
2/ Full stomach, plenty of dry crackers, water and easy digest energy food nibbled constantly.
3/ Stay busy/active. Steering helps everyone but novices find they can't concentrate on anything but steering and thus lose the motion/vision confusion.
4/ If off watch down below. Warm and comfortable flat on your back with eyes closed.

The above will minimise probability of seasickness (and being nervous about getting sick is a sure fire means of getting there) by minimising the inflammation of the motion nodule. Having a full stomach actually digesting food will send counter signals to the food poisoning centre saying no we are not nauseous we are digesting food so cancel the chunder signals.

Some situations you can't avoid the nausea. For me having to sit at the Nav station in a critical/ stressful situation where I have no alternative but to sit at the computer screen and concentrate on looking at that screen which is jumping around everywhere out of sync with brain. Have crackers and water on hand. If the saliva generation gets to such a state that dry crackers can't soak it up I will permit myself to throw up. Remember however that I do not have food poisoning and I can fool my brain into thinking I have chundered but still hold the content of my stomach in. Then immediately drink water and eat crackers. I do not have food poisoning so don't actually need to empty stomach.
If you do throw up try to minimise and rehydrate and eat immediately.
Seasickness becomes a serious condition when the sufferer starts to vomit bile and fails to rehydrate. That is a serious condition.and can rapidly deteriorate to critical. Force feed the sufferer water and food. Bananas are good plus water. Then water.

Make sure that everyone is warm and comfortable, has nibbles and water. If someone starts turning green and you can't stop them from feeding the fish then make sure they don't physically feed the sharks in person. A person throwing up over the side is just as likely to throw themselves overboard. Best position is kneeling in the cockpit with head over the foaming vomiting onto the side deck with somebody else "patting them on the back" but actually hanging onto the scruff of their neck.
Water and dry crackers and flat on their back in a bunk. Don't let someone throw their guts out, take off all their gear cause they are hot and continue to the bright yellow bile vomit cycle and possibly serious dehydration if they don't throw themselves overboard.
Valium is good at any time of the cycle! Preventative or recuperative.
Plus water!!!!

Two x Tic Tacks swallowed with a glass of water always works a Treat!

My wifes mum gets really crook (she can eat street food in any 3rd world country and is fine), my wife gets sick and if i'm out in a small tinny (FG or more than 5m im ok) i always get sick and whilst travelling around i was told to try Bonine tablets.

My wife has been out wide in 15-20knot lumpy conditions trolling for fish with pointy noses and has never even thought about it. Her mum has no issues anymore and i haven't yacked in a tinny since. They've tried the bands, tried kwells but these Bonine tablets work wonders

I do not know who gets it and why but one fact is proven to me, namely, if you are busy, you have less time to be sick. Few years back we been caught in a thirty knots blow with twentyfive feet seas but my mate who is usually prostrate at three feet swells kept going just because he was very busy and constantly engaged. **** scared too.
I never been sea sick yet, but l had to put up with crews to occupy both sides of the gunwales numerous times.
Most of the big names in world sailing are sick some times, there is nothing to be ashamed of if you are.
lt is just one of those things you have to live with.
Pete Goss suggests: " Bite hard if a big lump comes up, it might be your arse."

Yes HG I think it is looking at the horizon that helps. A writer for the Afloat magazine by the name of 'arry Driftwood lived
aboard and had intended a life of leisure at sea but suffered the mal de mer and so stayed moored. He drowned a while
ago falling overboard from his dinghy because he always stood up in it. I miss his articles, they were funny.

nswsailor said..
Arrgh.

Its not the sea bit but its bloody hell when I go ashore after a few days at sea!!!!

We spent about 14 days at sea when my eldest was about 3. When we returned home the first night he was swaying down the hallway crashing into the walls. Next morning he fell out of the car window and landed on his head. Went real pale and rag doll. Mrs rushed him to our GP who telephoned ahead to the ED that a serious head injury was coming in. As they were prepping this kid for an emergency craniotomy, he had absolutely no response to waking stimulus from the time he had arrived at the GP and in the ED he woke up with a projectile vomit and as only a three year old can exclaimed. " Where the **** am I and I am hungry"
There have been documented cases of people suffering seasickness symptoms for years upon return to shore.
However the most successful remedy to seasickness is to sit under a tree.

Very good info Frant.
I've never been seasick but my son used to get seasick when he worked on a marina detailing boats. He would be sick on the boats in the marina.
He came with me on my trip from South West Rocks to Coffs and kept a piece of raw ginger in his mouth all the time giving it a chew from time to time. I told him to stay on deck in the fresh air till he was used to it. By the end of the 12 hour trip he could go downstairs and was ok.

He has been working on boats ever since in Cairns and now he finds it hard to get used to being on land for a few days after being at sea.

nswsailor said..
As one who dose not get sick .......

LOL, it is lovely how ones memory fades, once one gets to the beautifully calm cruising waters of the Whitsundays

samsturdy said..

Yes HG I think it is looking at the horizon that helps. A writer for the Afloat magazine by the name of 'arry Driftwood lived
aboard and had intended a life of leisure at sea but suffered the mal de mer and so stayed moored. He drowned a while
ago falling overboard from his dinghy because he always stood up in it. I miss his articles, they were funny.

Sam one thing I tryto do every time is put my life jacket on before I use the dinghy . I keep it in the car for when I row out to the boat