Seasickness & sailing schools/instructors

[MissFitz]

This is a bit of a hobby-horse of mine, but in light of a certain incident this week I would like to ask why so many sailing schools & instructors seem to have such a lousy understanding of both the causes & treatment of seasickness.

I am invariably sick in any sort of bouncy sea but it took me years to work out how to deal with it because all the instructors I encountered in the early days told me that a) it was psychosomatic and b) if it wasn't, it could be cured by sitting on deck staring at the horizon. What's more, at least one sailing school (which shall be nameless) would put on a dinner of takeaway pizza & copious red wine before taking relative novices cross-Channel - & another instructor took a crew out for trip round the island in a F7 with apparently no plans to feed them until they got back.

It wasn't until I got to a Yachtmaster course that anyone told me about keeping warm, eating plenty of plain carbs, avoiding fatty foods & alcohol, not getting too tired & lying down flat in the centre of the boat (thank you Hamble School instructors!). In France they're all over it - the Glenans manual has an excellent chapter on seasickness & its causes, including the three Fs (faim, froid, fatigue) - but I don't think there's anything much in the RYA books on the subject.

I don't want to prejudge the result of any enquiry on the Hot Liquid case, but I note that the crew member posting on this forum mentioned that five of them hadn't eaten for 18 hours. If the skipper had, as the guys at Hamble School did, made sure the crew were well fed before they set out & when conditions deteriorated made each crew member in turn go below for a couple of hours in a warm sleeping bag & shovelled some suitable food into them as soon as they were flat out (so they wouldn't bring it straight back up again), they might not have avoided a rescue but they certainly would have been a lot more comfortable & capable than they were.

Seasickness is a very unpleasant condition & it's very real, but there are a lot of things you can do to mitigate it - so why do so many sailing instructors still seem to be so ignorant on the subject? And why doesn't the RYA make sure that they're not?

 

[prr]

I found it also helps if you dont get pissed the night befor.. If you do, you must stay pissed. What ever you do. Dont sober up!
Also has any one tried the Gu

 

[Pete R]

This is a bit of a hobby-horse of mine,

It wasn't until I got to a Yachtmaster course that anyone told me about keeping warm, eating plenty of plain carbs, avoiding fatty foods & alcohol, not getting too tired & lying down flat in the centre of the boat (thank you Hamble School instructors!).

The school you did your Comp Crew with should have dealt with it and you should have read about it in the Comp Crew book.

 

[Deleted member 36384]

That is a good point you make. The points you mention were known to me in the early 1980s on a sail training vessel that I worked on. The boat was based at a Regional Council Outdoor Education Centre and the instructors kept their knowledge up to date.

They were taught to me by a Skipper who was in his early 30s at the sail training organisation. In the late 80s, at an RYA Sailing School, it was never mentioned and I introduced the concepts you mention. Interestingly, other instructors at the Sea School, ex forces, where knowledgeable on this matter as well.

I don't know what it is like these days at the RYA but I thought that they would have moved on from the 1980s by now on this subject. Fry ups are banned on my boat, period.

 

[prr]

Guy Cotton Anti Sea Sickness Glasses?

 

[MissFitz]

The school you did your Comp Crew with should have dealt with it and you should have read about it in the Comp Crew book.

I don't remember reading anything in the comp crew book but it is a while back so that might just be me. I do, however, remember a selection of instructors from at least three sailing schools telling me that seasickness was psychosomatic & to keep staring at the horizon while getting chillier & sicker. The comments on inadequate/inappropriate food also apply to more than one school & instructor.

 

[Kukri]

That's odd.

I started before the RYA stuff but certainly every "sailing - how to" book that I read as a boy was very clear on keeping warm, simple carbohydrates, keeping close to the boat's centre of motion, not eating anything silly before setting out, etc. Back in the Dawn of Time the usual recommendation was to suck barley sugars -loads of glucose!

I wonder if perhaps a few people have been trying to be "macho" about it?

 

[Pete R]

The comments on inadequate/inappropriate food also apply to more than one school & instructor.

The only thing I can say to that is that it is part of sylabus (personal comfort) and should have been talked about. Certficates should also not be issued to people that are prone to excessive sea sickness.

View attachment 15533

 

[Kukri]

Certificates should also not be issued to people that are prone to excessive sea sickness.

View attachment 15533

I wouldn't go that far. Horatio Nelson did quite well, if I recall correctly.

 

[tom_sail]

When you take day skipper there's a requirement to show your sea sick. It's on the syllabus the instructor has to sign to prove you weren't sea sick. Bit unfair, I did mine in 0 knots and motored all the way some people get force 11 off Dover

 

[Pete R]

And why doesn't the RYA make sure that they're not?

Before I did my CI course I went on many a CC/DS weeks sail, to see how it was done and it was always talked about and dealt with whilst under way. Just found this on the RYA website "Course Content".

http://www.rya.org.uk/coursestraining/courses/sailcruising/Pages/Competentcrew.aspx

 

[Pete R]

When you take day skipper there's a requirement to show your sea sick.

Surely not.

 

[prr]

Should have gone to Specsavers.

http://www.guycotten.co.uk/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=32_138_268&products_id=430

 

[MissFitz]

The only thing I can say to that is that it is part of sylabus (personal comfort) and should have been talked about. Certficates should also not be issued to people that are prone to excessive sea sickness.

I agree it should have been talked about, my point is that it wasn't - or not in any helpful way. Also, I think this perhaps points up a limitation of those little RYA books with diagrams instead of write-through text - a little pic & an injunction to 'keep warm' under the heading 'personal comfort' is not the same as spelling out 'keep warm, fed & not too tired or you will be sick as a parrot'. And saying 'avoid alcohol & fatty foods' is not much use if that's what the sea school has provided for dinner/breakfast!

As to 'excessive seasickness' - in my experience very few people are so badly affected that they can't sail if told how to manage it properly. Equally, very few people are immune to it under the right (wrong?) conditions.

 

[Searush]

(snip)
It wasn't until I got to a Yachtmaster course that anyone told me about keeping warm, eating plenty of plain carbs, avoiding fatty foods & alcohol, not getting too tired & lying down flat in the centre of the boat (thank you Hamble School instructors!). In France they're all over it - the Glenans manual has an excellent chapter on seasickness & its causes, including the three Fs (faim, froid, fatigue) - but I don't think there's anything much in the RYA books on the subject.

(snip)

You forgot the 4th "F" FEAR! Anxiety is a great agravator of sea sickness susceptibility. A F10 would make most of us pretty anxious, especially if I was being asked to run before it with too much sail up!

BTW, we have found Ginger Biscuits good for encouraging kids to keep nibbling when they don't feel like food & no-one wants to go below to cook.

 

[Kukri]

Searush, dead right about the fear.

Can anyone remember when the use of ginger (biscuits, crystallised, etc) came in? I'm sure I don't remember it in the sixties and seventies and it's been rather a useful discovery with my family.

 

[Searush]

Searush, dead right about the fear.

Can anyone remember when the use of ginger (biscuits, crystallised, etc) came in? I'm sure I don't remember it in the sixties and seventies and it's been rather a useful discovery with my family.

I believe it is a Victorian remedy. SWMBO got it from her Granny.

 

[Seajet]

2 more handy things; those water bottles with a nozzle to suck are very handy indeed when a boat is being thrown around - dehydration being one of the big problems when someone is being sick, or just beginning to feel grot.

Also once they look vaguely like recovering enough to keep a drink of water down for a while, a tumbler of water with a sachet of 'dioralyte' ( I always spell it wrong, anyway ask for it at a chemist, about £4.00 for 4 sachets ) - pleasant blackcurrant taste - helps replace the lost salts & electrolytes if someone's been thoroughly ill.

No decent skipper will underestimate seasickness and its' effects, both out of crew capablities and sheer compassion !

 

[maxi77]

One of the big problems with seasickness is that it affects different people different ways. Mind you one of the worst things for a sufferer is some mach man telling them to buck up. Some people can work through it, I can still remember a young radar operator who would do his 4 hour watch standing at the PPI with a bucket wedged between his feet, and he never missed a contact. Equally there are others who need to curl up and die. Some are best up on deck, whilst others are better down below sleeping. Always having some food in your belly is good as you have something to bring up, every one has their favourite. Finally getting your sealegs is real, the longer you spend at sea the better you get at coping.

I am not susrpised that so many got so sick just a few hours into a rough passage, it was inevitable.

 

[tom_sail]

Surely not.

Stupid IPC won't let me edit posts on phone I ment "to show your NOT seasick"