Ever been seasick on your own boat?

[Babylon]

I was on the deck of a ferry with a friend one time and this guy standing next to us we'd been chatting to started going green. I was telling him to watch the horizon and take some deep breaths which seemed to be working but this friend of mine who was also a yacht sailor started in the opposite direction telling him to imagine eating fried eggs out of an ashtray or something similar. I'd not noticed what a sick minded individual he was until then. Stunning lack of empathy.

I 'laughed' [ ? ] at this, as did Sandy, whereas Capnsensible was 'astonished' [ ? ] ... what does that say about people like Sandy and myself?! ?

I've puked only once on my own boat in thirteen years (crossing back from Cherbourg the day after a F9 storm when the Channel was still very lumpy), and only once on another boat (first day of my CC course four hours south of the IoW in a gale). I also once felt utterly horrible the whole way from Dartmouth to Swanage, when I had surrendered skippering to a young YM candidate for one of his qualifying passages, rubbish sea-state, wind on the quarter rolling the 27footer like bu66ery for hour after hour... but really I shouldn't have had that curried mussels supper at Dittisham the night before!!

Things that get me going are: chartwork down below, coffee at sea, diesel fumes, not being skipper, fear, dehydration, hunger, cold, etc - i.e. the usual suspects!

 

[WoodyP]

I sail single handed 90% of the time & i get sea sick 25% of the time - It used to be higher in my 20s. Sometimes I chuck up 8-9 times & I am so ill I can hardly move. A typical period would be 8-10 hours. I have started 2 miles from my home port & sailed out towards Harwich using the aeries. Turned round because I was too ill to go into the river Orwell & the aeries has sailed me back to bradwell where I have been too ill to put fenders out. On arrival someone has tied my lines for me. It goes with my migraine & ear imbalance.
I cannot use my anchor because I get seasick at anchor so I have to go into marinas.
I just regard it as punishment for sailing & having had it for 50 years i just accept it as a hazard. In the early years I felt like jumping overboard. Now I just lay out & wait for it to go, puking at regular intervals as necessary.

I gave up boats for many years when every trip was misery. By chance I found I had got over it when a friend got me going again. I don't think he has ever been seasick. If it happened again I would sell up. Lifes too short for that sort of hell.

 

[Resolution]

How I envy those of you who don’t really get seasick. I am a chronic sufferer and have often been sick on my own boat. The crew on my Sigma 33 counted that I was sick 30 times in just over 33 hours during a beat to Guernsey against a SW gale. On offshore voyages I always have to include in the crew someone competent to step in as No 2 skipper.

 

[Uricanejack]

I never admit to it. Not even to myself.
Mind over matter.

Truth. Even today. Any boat wallowing in a swell will turn my gills green.
Making way I’m Usually fine.

 

[Daydream believer]

I gave up boats for many years when every trip was misery. By chance I found I had got over it when a friend got me going again. I don't think he has ever been seasick. If it happened again I would sell up. Lifes too short for that sort of hell.

It is an attitude of mind. One has to learn to cope with it. I have a cocpit hatch seat that I sit/lay in with my head wedged, with a piece of sponge-level with the deck, feet in the cockpit . I can look aft with a 180 degree horizon aft. I am held tight so I can relax.By sitting up a bit I can see forward for a few seconds then collapse back. I can be sick into a bucket & after each vomit there is a short period where I recover long enough to have a pee. Adjust the course etc Then I collapse back into the hammock. i do this until I recover enough to sail properly. If I feel it coming on I stick a reef in ASAP in case the wind gets up.

I also cat nap in it on longer trips

 

[newtothis]

It is an attitude of mind. One has to learn to cope with it. I have a cocpit hatch seat that I sit/lay in with my head wedged, with a piece of sponge-level with the deck, feet in the cockpit . I can look aft with a 180 degree horizon aft. I am held tight so I can relax.By sitting up a bit I can see forward for a few seconds then collapse back. I can be sick into a bucket & after each vomit there is a short period where I recover long enough to have a pee. Adjust the course etc Then I collapse back into the hammock. i do this until I recover enough to sail properly. If I feel it coming on I stick a reef in ASAP in case the wind gets up.

I also cat nap in it on longer trips
View attachment 108932

You chose to go sailing, right?

 

[WoodyP]

It is an attitude of mind. One has to learn to cope with it. I have a cocpit hatch seat that I sit/lay in with my head wedged, with a piece of sponge-level with the deck, feet in the cockpit . I can look aft with a 180 degree horizon aft. I am held tight so I can relax.By sitting up a bit I can see forward for a few seconds then collapse back. I can be sick into a bucket & after each vomit there is a short period where I recover long enough to have a pee. Adjust the course etc Then I collapse back into the hammock. i do this until I recover enough to sail properly. If I feel it coming on I stick a reef in ASAP in case the wind gets up.

I also cat nap in it on longer trips
View attachment 108932

I admire your tenacity and I like the deckchair, but as a volunteer, if I don't like something, I stop doing it.

 

[Kukri]

It is an attitude of mind. One has to learn to cope with it. I have a cocpit hatch seat that I sit/lay in with my head wedged, with a piece of sponge-level with the deck, feet in the cockpit . I can look aft with a 180 degree horizon aft. I am held tight so I can relax.By sitting up a bit I can see forward for a few seconds then collapse back. I can be sick into a bucket & after each vomit there is a short period where I recover long enough to have a pee. Adjust the course etc Then I collapse back into the hammock. i do this until I recover enough to sail properly. If I feel it coming on I stick a reef in ASAP in case the wind gets up.

I also cat nap in it on longer trips
View attachment 108932

I know of a kindred spirit. The extremely eminent offshore racer Frank Pong, whom my right hand man Andrew Williams was foredeck for, in the 1980s, once spent the whole three days of a heavy weather South China Sea Race (= Fastnet, Bermuda, Hobart) lashed to the after deck and vomiting continually, from Hong Kong to Manila. They won, of course.

 

[Adios]

It is an attitude of mind. One has to learn to cope with it. I have a cocpit hatch seat that I sit/lay in with my head wedged, with a piece of sponge-level with the deck, feet in the cockpit . I can look aft with a 180 degree horizon aft. I am held tight so I can relax.By sitting up a bit I can see forward for a few seconds then collapse back. I can be sick into a bucket & after each vomit there is a short period where I recover long enough to have a pee. Adjust the course etc Then I collapse back into the hammock. i do this until I recover enough to sail properly. If I feel it coming on I stick a reef in ASAP in case the wind gets up.

I also cat nap in it on longer trips

But its not every trip you said 25%? Even still I'm really amazed you keep doing it. You must really love it when it goes well!

 

[Adios]

Things that get me going are: ....... not being skipper

Thats the thing I'm wondering about. How can such a physically violent thing be such a mental issue

 

[Adios]

Then about 18 months ago had a spate of dizziness spells. Fell down in the middle of a field one day. Had to lean against a lamp post in the middle of town another time. Assume people thought, as I would have done, that I was pissed.
Took to going about with a walking stick. Really torrid time, terrified of doing anything like sailing. Cycling and skiing were off. Avoided driving

Doctor diagnosed the problem gave me some exercises to do. After about a month it all went away. Better than ever.
Before the diagnosis we tbought it was game over and sold the boat.

Vertigo? What were the exercises? Might they work for seasickness?

 

[Babylon]

... lashed to the after deck and vomiting continually, from Hong Kong to Manila. They won, of course.

Using mechanical propulsion? Isn't that cheating?!

 

[Babylon]

Thats the thing I'm wondering about. How can such a physically violent thing be such a mental issue?

I ought really to elaborate. When I said "not being skipper", I'm usually fine as crew on other people's boats, just in that particular situation where I'd handed all command of my own boat from passage-planning onwards to my young and eager crew so he could carry out an authentic YM qualifying passage as temporary skipper:

• Feeling less than chipper when we woke early (due in part to the curried mussels I'd eaten the night before) I'd have delayed leaving the Dart for another day, but I was over-ridden by the temporary skipper.
• Not having any responsibility for the planning or on-passage navigation or management of the boat removed the 'focus' I'd normally have as skipper (single-handed or with a crew), and this certainly didn't help - all I remember now was the cold and the steel-grey, menacing-looking short seas on our quarter rolling us constantly as I tried to concentrate on the horizon.
• Once nearing the Bill, and long-since confined to my bunk with my eyes closed (not puking but feeling like death), I'd have broken the passage in two and put into Portland for the night, but was over-ridden by the temporary skipper who had a clear personal objective in mind: his 65NM non-stop qualifying passage!
• Later, but well before we reached St Alban's Head, it was abundantly clear to me that (due to a slower-than-planned-for passage speed as a result of the slightly worse than forecast conditions etc) our small and heavy long-keeler would quickly become victim to a foul tide and a worsening sea-state with it, so I'd have used the engine as well as the sails, but was over-ridden by the 'purist' temporary skipper... until we were eventually down to only two knots over the ground in the dark when he finally agreed with his "crew"!!

Ultimately, as skipper, my byword is to "make life as easy as possible for your crew and yourself", but my temporary skipper, being young and thrusting, doesn't (yet) see life this way...

 

[Daydream believer]

. You must really love it when it goes well!

Don't we all
Sailing gives one such fantastic memories.
one's first sail in the first dinghy
First overnight without parents in dad's silhouette
Loads of Burnham weeks in Hornet, Stella & others boats
First crossing Burnham & seeing Ostend rise up in the early morning mist & going in
sailing to CIs with wife
sailing round UK SH
the list goes on
But I do have some memorable "pukes" as well that I will NEVER forget

 

[Never Grumble]

But its not every trip you said 25%? Even still I'm really amazed you keep doing it. You must really love it when it goes well!

I've been seasick for years, from the trip to Jersey when I was a child, through to yachting in the scouts and then whenever it was rough during my time in the navy; once spent five days throwing up on passage between Scotland and Helsinki. Most of the time it is a state of mind, on our own boat I am still occasionally seasick but otherwise you cant beat the experience of being at sea.

 

[Adios]

I ought really to elaborate. When I said "not being skipper", I'm usually fine as crew on other people's boats, just in that particular situation where I'd handed all command of my own boat from passage-planning onwards to my young and eager crew so he could carry out an authentic YM qualifying passage as temporary skipper:

• Feeling less than chipper when we woke early (due in part to the curried mussels I'd eaten the night before) I'd have delayed leaving the Dart for another day, but I was over-ridden by the temporary skipper.
• Not having any responsibility for the planning or on-passage navigation or management of the boat removed the 'focus' I'd normally have as skipper (single-handed or with a crew), and this certainly didn't help - all I remember now was the cold and the steel-grey, menacing-looking short seas on our quarter rolling us constantly as I tried to concentrate on the horizon.
• Once nearing the Bill, and long-since confined to my bunk with my eyes closed (not puking but feeling like death), I'd have broken the passage in two and put into Portland for the night, but was over-ridden by the temporary skipper who had a clear personal objective in mind: his 65NM non-stop qualifying passage!
• Later, but well before we reached St Alban's Head, it was abundantly clear to me that (due to a slower-than-planned-for passage speed as a result of the slightly worse than forecast conditions etc) our small and heavy long-keeler would quickly become victim to a foul tide and a worsening sea-state with it, so I'd have used the engine as well as the sails, but was over-ridden by the 'purist' temporary skipper... until we were eventually down to only two knots over the ground in the dark when he finally agreed with his "crew"!!

Ultimately, as skipper, my byword is to "make life as easy as possible for your crew and yourself", but my temporary skipper, being young and thrusting, doesn't (yet) see life this way...

It could be why seasickness happens at least occasionally to all of us, so we learn there is more to sailing than pushing on despite the groaning and blowing sounds from the cabin!

• Not having any responsibility for the planning or on-passage navigation or management of the boat removed the 'focus' I'd normally have as skipper (single-handed or with a crew), and this certainly didn't help - all I remember now was the cold and the steel-grey, menacing-looking short seas on our quarter rolling us constantly as I tried to concentrate on the horizon.

But this is the point. If you were skipper you probably wouldn't have been ill at all and your young crew would have lost his lunch and enthusiasm instead. How is this difference so critical I wonder

 

[shortjohnsilver]

I started my affair with the sea through fishing from a small inflatable with my father aged twelve. I can tell you, every time we went out, I was sick. If we were catching fish and busy I would be okay. Mostly. But if we were sitting there, waiting, often cold and the sea was throwing us about, on came the sea sickness. I keep at it until fifteen or so, when things changed and we stopped our fishing. Sixteen started dinghy sailing in the docks at Surrey Quays. Not sick sailing dinghy. Eighteen went to sea, Merchant Naval apprentice deck officer and amazingly was never ever sea sick. Didn’t matter what size ship just never felt sea sick. Definitely developed the ability to move with the movement of the ship completely unconsciously so, tilting back and forth without noticing. Everyone at sea did this.
Back ashore for twenty odd years and bought my first boat. Twenty years land based, no sailing, ships, boats or dinghy. However, I went back to it without really’ suffering sea sickness. I say really

 

[shortjohnsilver]

Oops!
Well, now, second boat, I’ll just get headaches come on when things get difficult and the boats lolloping about. As soon as I’m back in the cockpit busy my head clears again. I know that these headaches are seasickness and what I need to do. I’ve got an inflatable dinghy tender and sometimes when I’m in it, guess what, I feel queasy sometimes. Especially if I’m cold. Bigger the boat the better able I am to deal with it.

 

[Kukri]

I have been sick whilst skipper. Rather to my own surprise. It didn’t incapacitate me.

More to the point I’ve never been sick when singlehanded. Has anyone?

 

[Adios]

I have been sick whilst skipper. Rather to my own surprise. It didn’t incapacitate me.

More to the point I’ve never been sick when singlehanded. Has anyone?

Thats what I was wondering, judging by the replies on this thread its not unheard of. eg Ever been seasick on your own boat?

Can't that common though or it would be a big cause of RNLI call outs and we'd have heard of it.