aspiring sailor with queasy spouse - doable?

[SV__Grace]

A big question is does your partner WANT to?


If they didn't get seasick, would they WANT to be on a boat with you?


Where there is a will, there is a way, but it's not a good idea to push your partner further and faster than they are comfortable.


Small, baby steps did the trick for us.


My wife used to get violently, agonizingly seasick on a boat, curled up in a fetal position moaning. I felt awful and didn't want her to have to go through that, even if she was willing to do it "for me."


But by taking very small baby steps over a period of years (4 years or so) we were able to sell our house to cruise full time. She still gets a little seasick now and then, especially on the ocean, but tolerates inland waters very well such as Puget Sound and we love our life together on the water!

[MicHughV]

seasickness is generally taken to be "motion sickness, this where you get the queasy stomach and the urge to hurl...

but....some people simply get "scared" of seeing big waves up close and personal...or out of sight of land, etc..fear also sets off a queasy stomach...

then there is this....I've never been seasick in my life, and I've been in all kinds of weather, but I don't do well on amusements rides, I havn't thrown up, but certainly felt like I wanted to..so go figure....I simply won't do amusement rides these days, so don't invite me to come along.

[Gingersnap]

Does your spouse get air sick when she fly in a plane?

[hpaabor]

Had a wife that suffered from motion sickness. She did come sailing with me - but I also did a lot of solo sailing. She would use a scopolamine patches
https://www.webmd.com/drugs/2/drug-1...dermal/details
They worked well for her. I agree with all the people saying try (ie school, share, crew, charter) before you buy. There were a whole lot of people at my club that were faced with the boat wife choice.

[Nicholson58]

I suggest a trailer boat with a mix of the performance you were hooked on but the ability to take your family out for a day sail. Try a Highlander. There are a lot of old ones around. They are still made and traded, raced.

Highlander One Design Sailing

Note there are also a couple of R boats in the Highlander fleet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTjsS4Ezmlk

[stickyscissors]

So many great responses already. Seasickness may be less of an issue than desire. If your wife isn't interested that could be incurable. No pill that I know of for that.

I am in a similar situation (minus the seasickness). For what it's worth, I already knew how to sail, but never had a boat of my own except for a small dinghy. My wife gave me the green light to get a 30' monohull. We are in year 2. Here's where we're at:

- She likes bluebird condition sailing with modest heeling
- The kids are bored unless we bring other kids, and even then, they're not ever asking to go sailing
- We did a 3 week cruise in summer 1, it went great. Despite that, no overnight trips this summer. I'm pretty sad over it. I'm dying to do it again, but not happening this year as crew isn't interested.
- My wife still knows very little about sailing and can only help by taking the wheel when needed on occasion.

My advice is to:
- go for it, but have modest expectations. Know that your spouse may never like sailing despite your best efforts (but she might!)
- get a boat that you can pretty much single-hand. Relying on a reluctant participant (especially a queasy one) is a recipe for butting heads, stress, and bad times.
- think about a dinghy first as others have said, but get something where she will be relatively comfortable if you want to both go out (i.e. not a Sunfish, which are great fun, but not conducive to snacks and wine)
- learn how to keep heeling to a relative minimum and that comfort is more important than speed for some passengers

Good luck! I'm about to head out for 4-nights with a friend, my wife and kids want to stay behind. So it goes.....

[Mark Marsden]

I sailed a bit in my teens. My dad nearly bought a yacht, but my mum gets seasick if you rock from side to side and barely travels. My wife is scared of water esp sailing as she had bad dinghy exoerience in her teens.

We decided a long time ago that we could do separate things if we needed - I worked from home and wanted to go out, while she was an exhausted teacher and wanted to be in.

Now I'm retired I've reprised dinghy and yacht sailing and she's happy for me to go off whenever. Though we could have been more adventurous if she sailed as well. It does feel a bit belated however.

[glanrock]

I did not read through all the responses, but I saw a few that hit this on the head.

The spouse needs to want to go, to overcome the obstacles and be out there. Needs to have a like, if not love, of being out on the water and hearing no phones, tv, and instead the sound of water across the hull as you cut through a tack. If that is there, then the sea-sickness can be overcome.

Our kids don't really have much of an interest, and we're good with that. They come down and on occasion will go out with us but typically they are out doing their own thing. Of course they're old enough to do that, but when my daughter was younger it did preclude some of the overnight journeys we wanted to make. However she was a sport and sometimes came out in spite of it making her have minor to moderate sea-sick feelings just to be with the family and friends who joined us for the days and nights out.


Best of luck to you!

[MVDarlin]

Unless she is gung ho for the idea it wont work. The boat will demand too much time and money and first sign of rough water she will want to go to the beach.

[Rotten Ricky]

Absolutely often doable - but plan carefully.

The circumstances in which sailing takes place is the key for you. Do not put a reluctant new sailor into a tippy, tiny, dinghy sailboat or you will lose them forever.

Being afraid of the water and being affected by its motion are two different things but it can often be solved by using a multihull sailboat. These ride very flat and are very stable - unless you are unskilled and/or foolish. They also do not wallow in the water like a monohull - it is the excessive wallowing that promotes the nausea or headaches. Multihulls have a slightly sharper but lighter reaction to waves etc. But they do not heel wildly or wallow - things my wife hates.

I suggest that you sail in flat water on a mild day - such as on lakes or rivers or well-protected harbours etc. Chartering a skippered 35-plus ft cat for a few hours would be great, or renting one once you are familiar. Suggest you not get one for a longer period - at first.

However, another tack is to start smallish with very little cost and after you and one daughter become wildly enthusiastic with the experience, you might influence the other two crew. To this end I suggest searching out a Hobie 16, 18 or 20 ft beach cat, or similar. Or if you have a few skills, and if you want something more daring at a bargain price, find a Tornado 20. These are actually a racing cat, but just like you can drive a Ferrari at modest, comfortable speeds, you can sail a racing cat at modest, comfortable, fairly dry, and re-assuring speeds.

These were used in the Olympics but were superseded by a newer design - but they are still a great boat. You don't have to hang out the sides on a trapeze. You can de-tune them to make them easier to handle. Reducing mast height and therefore reducing sail area would make a big difference. A fun project for a guy with a few skills and yet capable of giving you a wet and thrilling ride - when your wife is not on board!

The biggest hurdle is that at 10 ft in beam they can be a challenge to transport in one piece on a trailer, often having to be lifted up at 45 degrees on one side to come under the road-width limitations. But you can also assemble and disassemble them so move them around in smaller pieces. On mine, I am about to modify the beams so they simply fold upwards in the middle to reduce the width.

But what a bargain - because they are not the current trend, they are often available very inexpensively - mine, in good shape, cost me literally two cases of beer.

Best of luck,

Cheers, RR.

[Cadence]

Learning how to flex your legs can help sea sickness. Don't go below with out a bucket.

[ron17571]

My friends' hot-looking girlfriend hated going to the lake and sailing. She made my friend miserable. I told him to get a new girlfriend. consider leaving the miserable people at home, maybe they can find something they like doing. My small Laser was about the funnest boat I had, small and easy to launch boats get used more. Large boats sit a lot.

[ron17571]

Originally Posted by Rotten Ricky

Absolutely often doable - but plan carefully.

The circumstances in which sailing takes place is the key for you. Do not put a reluctant new sailor into a tippy, tiny, dinghy sailboat or you will lose them forever.

Being afraid of the water and being affected by its motion are two different things but it can often be solved by using a multihull sailboat. These ride very flat and are very stable - unless you are unskilled and/or foolish. They also do not wallow in the water like a monohull - it is the excessive wallowing that promotes the nausea or headaches. Multihulls have a slightly sharper but lighter reaction to waves etc. But they do not heel wildly or wallow - things my wife hates.

I suggest that you sail in flat water on a mild day - such as on lakes or rivers or well-protected harbours etc. Chartering a skippered 35-plus ft cat for a few hours would be great, or renting one once you are familiar. Suggest you not get one for a longer period - at first.

However, another tack is to start smallish with very little cost and after you and one daughter become wildly enthusiastic with the experience, you might influence the other two crew. To this end I suggest searching out a Hobie 16, 18 or 20 ft beach cat, or similar. Or if you have a few skills, and if you want something more daring at a bargain price, find a Tornado 20. These are actually a racing cat, but just like you can drive a Ferrari at modest, comfortable speeds, you can sail a racing cat at modest, comfortable, fairly dry, and re-assuring speeds.

These were used in the Olympics but were superseded by a newer design - but they are still a great boat. You don't have to hang out the sides on a trapeze. You can de-tune them to make them easier to handle. Reducing mast height and therefore reducing sail area would make a big difference. A fun project for a guy with a few skills and yet capable of giving you a wet and thrilling ride - when your wife is not on board!

The biggest hurdle is that at 10 ft in beam they can be a challenge to transport in one piece on a trailer, often having to be lifted up at 45 degrees on one side to come under the road-width limitations. But you can also assemble and disassemble them so move them around in smaller pieces. On mine, I am about to modify the beams so they simply fold upwards in the middle to reduce the width.

But what a bargain - because they are not the current trend, they are often available very inexpensively - mine, in good shape, cost me literally two cases of beer.

Best of luck,

Cheers, RR.

I found that smaller Catamarans were easier to flip back over. I enjoyed being on one hull near vertical. Lots of fun. when you get 18 footers or larger they take more weight to right. good for two people(or three of your all thin).

[Nicholson58]

We’ve found that putting a queasy person on the helm helps. I think it focuses their attention.

[Tanqueray]

My wife doesn’t love sailing, and I sail 75% of the time by myself. She goes when the weather is near perfect…not too windy, not to wavy, and nice sunny warm day.

This weekend in fact, we had 2-4 foot seas on Lake Michigan on Saturday…I went out solo. Sunday the seas were 1-foot or less, winds 10-13 knots, and it was sunny & warm. So we invited another couple and went out. I had to reef the jib and the main to keep the boat pretty flat, but we still had a good sail and everyone was happy.

So, it depends on what you want. I won’t be cruising anytime soon with my wifey, but I can day sail and take an occasional overnighter (solo) since she won’t sleep on the boat.


Greg