I have to believe that professional yachtsmen don’t get seasick under anything but extreme conditions, and I’ve sailed with people who quite happily went below when we had three reefs in, and fried the mackerel we had just caught.
I’m unlucky. I even felt twinges of nausea once in a dinghy – in zero wind and an oily swell. Fairground roundabouts make me puke, swingboats make me ill, and I couldn’t fly control-line model aircraft without falling over.
What’s worse is that I don’t throw up – I just get sweats and waves of nausea. Its the smooth harmonic motion that does it – random violent movement doesn’t worry me. I used to get airsick in low-flying propeller-driven passenger aircraft, so I was a little leary of riding in a Piper Arrow later in life. I needn’t have worried – I was quite happy replacing the fuse in the GPS as we flew into the edge of a thunderstorm.
Be that as it may, after a couple of seasons racing around the cans in boats with lids, I decided I really ought to give offshore racing a go, so I stocked up on Marzine. It worked quite well for deck work, but I would never have been able to ship as a navigator or cook. In dirty weather, I always dived for my bunk when I went below, and never hung around when donning foulies before climbing up to the cockpit.
Way back in about 1970, I helped design, build and sail what was then considered to be a light displacement yacht, but it had a fairly traditional hull form. I never sailed offshore in it, but I expect its motion wasn’t much different from that of boats twice her weight. I wonder how I would get on in a modern planing hull offshore? I hear people claim they can be uncomfortable, but I wouldn’t mind being slammed around as long as the movement was erratic. Anyway, I shall never know now.
It’s very rare for me to get seasick, but it has happened on a couple of occasions. It’s not the sea conditions that have caused it but the stink of diesel and the thrumming of engines. The motion doesn’t bother me at all – it’s the noise and vibrations that do it. Ferries are the worst. I’ve always been fine on any other kind of boat no matter how rough it’s been.
The throbbing & vibration don’t worry me – but the smells of diesel and new paint certainly do. On older ferries (before the powerful stabilisers they now fit) I preferred to go out on deck, but would not normally be wearing good enough clothing to avoid hypothermia if I stayed out too long.
Nowadays, it’s often impossible to go on deck unless the ship is sinking.