PRACTICAL

ENERGY OBSERVER • CROSSING THE NORTH SEA • HANDLE BIG BREEZE UPWIND

- WILL BRUTON

SPECIAL REPORT

WILL BRUTON ON VIRTUAL REALITY SEASICKNESS RELIEF

Charles Darwin gave a warning to any of his readers tempted to romanticise sailing, declaring in The Voyage of the Beagle “if a person suffer much from seasickness, let him weight it heavily in the balance: it is no trifling evil which may be cured within a week.”

But while Darwin’s theory of evolution became established science, what causes seasickness still remains fiercely debated. What’s more, nothing invented so far has managed to work universally to relieve the symptoms, and drug-based treatments are renowned for their side effects. So even professional sailors learn to live with the debilitating condition rather than overcome it for good. In the Volvo Ocean Race there have been multiple instances of over half a professional crew being unwell at the same time.

New Zealand start-up See-Level promises to help sailors overcome symptoms of seasickness by bringing together movement sensor technology and virtual reality. Founder Dudley Jackson, originally from the Isle of Wight, started the business after being forced to call off his own circumnavigation plans. “I'd bought the boat, got ready over a number of years and was excited to cross oceans,” he explains. But overcome by seasickness as soon as he was offshore, Dudley returned to New Zealand disappointed, turning to his background in IT to find a solution.