Coping with seasickness

Rachael Sprot shares how to deal with the dreaded Mal de mer to avoid ruining the day

- Rachael Sprot

During one of my earliest trips as a professional sailor a wise old skipper gave me some advice at watch change. Watch the green ones, they'll rush for the leeward rail and if they aren't clipped on there's a strong chance they'll go over," he said.

"And what's more, they won't care if they do."

I gulped and looked at my crew. Their faces resembled a Farrow and Ball paint chart: lichen green, skimmed milk white and ash grey. We were en route to Cherbourg from the Solent. By the time we got to the shipping lanes I only had one crew member left on the deck, the rest were in their bunks.

Inglorious and debilitating as it is, the green monster of seasickness strikes indiscriminately. I know several experienced skippers who resign themselves to a diet of bread and water for the first 48 hours of every offshore passage, while some complete novices get off scot-free.

Even round the world sailors like Chris Nicholson and Tracy Edwards are sufferers, while Admiral Lord Nelson himself admitted that: "I am ill every time it blows hard and nothing but my enthusiastic love for the profession keeps me one hour at sea."

The reality is that we all have a wave with our name on it, so we'd better have a decent plan for when the time comes.

Why do people get seasick?

Seasickness is caused by the confusion between different parts of your balance mechanism. Your inner ear is a network of fluid-filled channels sensitive to gravity and motion, called the vestibular system.

Normally the information sent from here to the brain corresponds with the signals coming from the other senses such as vision. On a boat, things stop adding up: according to our eyes we're stationary relative to our immediate surroundings, yet the vestibular system is registering constant motion.