Seasickness related to boat size or something else…?

[moseriw]

you feel unconfortsble, loosing control over the movements of your body.
This is the main cause for sea sickness. If you get accustomed to the boats you are on and gain experience handling a boat it will be much much better. Had the same problem starting to be a salty.

Next: Yes it is the lenght +43 but not only. It is the weight and the keel too.
Try to bget on a real blue water cruiser +43 with long keel and + 15 tons metric and you feel the difference.

Modern yachts are built for speed not seaworthiness. They cruise in coastsl waters - mostly. They are lightsweight, have a body like a jolly-boat and a small, eventually deep keel.

Therefore they do not glide the waves but crush in them with a big moaning bump.
Usually the do have more sailsquare than it is good for them so gusts will make them roll quickly. They are a nervous bunch of sh.. For bluewater purposes!
Well they are built for 90% coastal cruises and charter.

Try to get on a Schooner or ketch of Colin Archer, Halberg Rassy, Hans Christian or a Taiwan cruiser like mine. Of course the best of all ;-) a Vagabond 47.

Keep in mind: length > 42 ft, long keel, weight > 15 tons.

good luck

[JPA Cate]

Another factor influencing sea sickness -- at least for me -- is being chilled. Something about the muscles involuntarily tensing, sometimes I can get rid of it at the queasy state, just by relaxing the muscles around my stomach.

Active helming helps, as Trente Pieds has written, keeping your ears parallel to the horizon and letting your body swing with the motion, and your eyes looking ahead.

What my body has learned also influences whether I take meds before or later on, if i cannot manage it by other means.

Ann

[sailingpzas]

Originally Posted by moseriw

Next: Yes it is the lenght +43 but not only. It is the weight and the keel too.
Try to bget on a real blue water cruiser +43 with long keel and + 15 tons metric and you feel the difference.

Modern yachts are built for speed not seaworthiness. They cruise in coastsl waters - mostly. They are lightsweight, have a body like a jolly-boat and a small, eventually deep keel.

Therefore they do not glide the waves but crush in them with a big moaning bump.
Usually the do have more sailsquare than it is good for them so gusts will make them roll quickly. They are a nervous bunch of sh.. For bluewater purposes!
Well they are built for 90% coastal cruises and charter.

Try to get on a Schooner or ketch of Colin Archer, Halberg Rassy, Hans Christian or a Taiwan cruiser like mine. Of course the best of all ;-) a Vagabond 47.

Keep in mind: length > 42 ft, long keel, weight > 15 tons.

good luck

Thanks a lot! This seems to fit to what I was thinking initially. Of course, I am aware that also the psychological part is relevant, but a "longer keel" makes quite some sense for me, when it come to stability. Also more weight make her "sit more robustly". Thanks again, things start slowly to make sense all together.

Though, there will never be boat big enough. If the sea gets really wild, even a 100-footer won't be enough. But, well, we are just trying to "optimise".

[JPA Cate]

Another note: being seasick is yucky while it is going on, but when it's over, it's all the way over, and all you have is the memory of the fact of it: you don't re-experience it, just know it happened.

Ann

[Hydra]

Next: Yes it is the lenght +43 but not only. It is the weight and the keel too.
Try to bget on a real blue water cruiser +43 with long keel and + 15 tons metric and you feel the difference.

What a joke! The occasion I was the most severely sea sick (throwing up *all* I had in my stomach, then bile for hours) was on a 100-foot, 250-tonne gaff-rigged schooner.

Alain

[moseriw]

Originally Posted by Hydra

What a joke! The occasion I was the most severely sea sick (throwing up *all* I had in my stomach, then bile for hours) was on a 100-foot, 250-tonne gaff-rigged schooner.

Alain

you did not read my first paras carefully did you?
To ANN: that unfortunately is not true.
some get never ever rid of if - think > 0,5%
others have it on the beginning of the cruise an the it i ok - so far.
Few have it on every cruise start.

Again: the main reason is in your brain felling that you loose control. I you are a tenth of a salty(experience AND knowledge).. Well for most sailors it is ok then.

HYDRA: unfortionately it is not like your gall bladder - take it out and the problems are gone.

BUT: a well built ship and moderate weather conditions help a lot

[Deltasailor]

I don't think keel type has a lot to do with sickness. It is always more uncomfortable in the saloon than on deck. I have known the off watch to undress on deck and make a dirty dive for their bunk before the dreaded sickness strikes.
Nerves also have a lot to do with it. Having never been sick before, I was sick on passage from the Solent to France whilst doing my yachtmasters. (Even the instructor was sick) and again 24hours before Cape Horn after 3000 miles in the southern ocean.(it was blowing 55 knots).
The general thinking is that it gets better the more you do.

[danielamartindm]

I've noticed that different motions tend to make different people seasick. Rolling does it for some, hobby horsing for others, heeling for still others. In a given seaway, larger vessels have gentler motion of all kinds. I would try chartering a cat next opportunity. Cats all but eliminate heeling and rolling. You and your honey may find that a smaller cat leaves you feeling better than a larger monohull. I've seen it happen.

[TrentePieds]

A trip to the confessional :-)

I had four crooz'n'learn students in a Catalina 27. Fifth day out, heading home. We'd had a WONDERFUL evening in every respect, "ships stores" being plentiful, and had set our for home at 0600. We came out of Porlier Pass headed for English Bay. Sea state 3 verging on four. It struck. And it lead to one of the truly proud moments in my life:

I found myself a place in the lee side very after corner of the cockpit. My conversation with Ralph was conducted over the the rail of that corner. After about the sixth time Ralph and I had spoken, a lovely young lady in the crew tapped me on the shoulder and said: "We all really appreciate that you are so tidy about that! :-0)

TrentePieds

[thinwater]

I love sailing, but I don't get it. (FTR, I have never been seasick.)

If seasickness is a problem, take up...

1. rock climbing
2. kayaking
3. ice climbing
4. bird watching
5. hiking
6. a musical instrument
7. photography
8. softball
9. RVing
10. inventing
11. writing (yeah, it has to be about something)
12. swimming
13. surfing
14. dinghy sailing (never heard of a small boat sailor getting sick)

or any of a thousand things that folks do. But do something that makes me feel vile... on purpose? I think they have therapy for that. I would switch to several of the others.

The only reason I pay attention to the topic is so that I can help guests.

[knockabout]

motion sickness is something you need to work through yourself.


old remedy / sail till you find a good safe anchorage with a tree not far from the shore / dinghy to the shore / sit under the tree and stay there until your motion sickness is gone / apparently works for stage coach and steam train as well

[moseriw]

TrentePieds - never mind. I know an old really crusty salty who could not get rid of that pain.

His arrangement with this? He grabed your position to leeward and was yarning continously interrupted only by - well out to the lee.

[varkpilot]

Originally Posted by Ann T. Cate

I still get seasick the first 3 days we go to sea, if we've been in quiet anchorages a long time.

Let me repeat, you have a motion sickness problem here, not a boat size one.

Ann

Ann, you may already know this. America had a somewhat famous admiral in WWII named William (Bull) Halsey. Like you, his first 3 days or so after setting sail were spent in his cabin aboard an aircraft carrier, sick as a dog. After those first few days, he was just fine.

Ray

[wsmac]

Originally Posted by Hoodsail

Pharmacist here, so have to chime in...did a quick look at the medical literature on motion sickness over the last 3-4 yrs and found....
- the most nauseogenic vertical oscillation (0.2Hz) is consistent with camel riding...

.
And THIS folks is EXACTLY why Lyle Lovett advised EVERYONE many years ago to ride your PONY on your boat.... Camels?... NO WAY!
.
https://youtu.be/hpM8FjO4Vko

[TrentePieds]

Quote "...TrentePieds - never mind. I know an old really crusty salty who could not get rid of that pain."

Not sure how to read your comment :-)

Mine wasn't a whinge, just a laugh at myself, really, and a way of pointing out to the OP who seems so worried about it, that while mal-de-mer can indeed be incapacitating, for the most part it's trivial and laughable. Damn nuisance but, mostly, not anything that qualifies as a "real" problem :-)

TrentePieds