Mal de Mer is a rather pleasant and unassuming French term for the debilitating effect motion sickness may have on your body. Luckily, it is not usually life threatening although many sufferers wish it were if only to bring relief to the extreme discomfort they feel! I have heard said that there are two stages of sea sickness, first you are frightened that you are going to die and the second stage you wish that you had!One of the most irritating things is how everyone else around you seems perfectly comfortable and happy, in the same conditions that have reduced you to utter misery.
Sea sickness happens when the body, inner ear, and eyes all send different signals to the brain, resulting in confusion and queasiness. It is a problem generally attributed to disturbance in the balance system of the inner ear (vestibular) system. Your sensory perception gets out of sync as these nerve fibers attempt to compensate for the unfamiliar motion of the boat moving through water.
The visual stimulus is misleading as it reports things like cabin walls, and furniture in such a way that the brain interprets these things as stable when they're not. Your brain is being told by the vision system that the world is stable, while the inner ear is screaming that it's not.
The good news for sufferers is that the condition often disappears without medical treatment within a few days. As your brain learns to compensate for the swaying and pitching of the boat you will get your “sea legs”.
One unfortunate aspect is that after a prolonged period at sea it may take a while for you to adjust to being on dry land again. Whilst I am normally capable of standing on one leg in the shower while washing the other, after a few days at sea when I go to have a shower in a marina showers ashore I find this impossible!
There are three seasickness triggers guaranteed to cause suffers uncomfortable symptoms. These triggers should be avoided whenever possible during the first few hours at sea.
- Going below deck for extended periods (more than about 3 minutes!) If you have to go below, make sure you lie down this may help to prevent sea sickness.
- Looking through binoculars for anything longer than a glance.
- Reading a book, looking at a compass or doing chart work. Try to look at the distant horizon and do not look at objects your brain will interpret as stable, such as the boat which is not stable!
There are some remedies that can help. Travel patches made by a company called Scopoderm, shown to the left, which you stick behind an ear four hours before going to sea gradually release a drug called scopolamine and work for 72 hours. I once did a Bay of Biscay crossing with someone who always suffered from sea sickness and they worked very well for him. Herbal remedies such as ginger are reported to have a beneficial effect, even eating ginger biscuits can help. Pressure bands which press on an acupuncture pressure point on the inside of the wrist sometimes work and are shown to the right, you can buy them from any chandlery.
I have suffered from sea sickness in the past but only on yachts never on a motor boat. I have only actually been sick twice, all the other times I have just felt awful and very depressed. On these occasions I have to constantly remind myself that I have nothing to be depressed about! And therefore the depression must be sea sickness!There are many famous sailors who have suffered from dreadful sea sickness, Lord Nelson was totally incapacitated for the first few days at sea. Clare Francis also suffered badly which may have been one of the reasons why she gave up sailing and started writing novels.
Having run both a sailing school and a motor cruising school it has been my experience over the last twenty years that around 50% of my crews on yachts have suffered from different
degrees of seasickness whereas I have never seen anyone either be or feel seasick on a motor cruiser except for one person who went and sat down below because he was wet and cold. So maybe the answer for those of you who are prone to seasickness is give up sailing and take up motor cruising!UPDATE DECEMBER 2008. I HAVE RECENTLY HEARD OF AN ELECTRICAL SEA SICK PREVENTION DEVICE Shown to the left which you wear like a wrist watch. You can buy it from www.mailspeedmarine.com Tel: 0044 4932629. When you go to their website type Relief Band into the box on the top left hand side of the page. It is selling for 89.99 pounds at the moment. If you buy one please let me know how well it works.
Update August 27th 2009. I have just received an email from Glenis Kingston who has been using one of these devices during her cruise this summer as follows:
I have been looking on your web-site, and have noticed that you remarked upon the electrical sea-sickness prevention device, which you wear on your wrist.
I have one of these. The first time I wore it was last summer. We left Torquay marina mid-afternoon in light winds and calm seas to do an overnight passage to Falmouth on the first leg of our trip to Ireland. I knew that the wind would increase later that evening, so I decided to try out my new device for anti sea-sickness. I decided that I would not take my usual anti sea-sickness pills, so that I could see how effective this wrist device would be on it's own.
I am afraid that it did not work for me as, for only the second time in my life (the first being with you on Henry Morgan in the straits of Gibraltar), I was horrendously sea-sick for most of the night. I didn't have the confidence to use it again on that trip. I then tried it when I sailed on a Tall Ship earlier this year, but in conjunction with anti sea-sickness pills. I had no feelings of sea-sickness at all. This gave me encouragement to try it on our trip to Brittany. I did, but in conjunction with anti sea-sickness pills again, and did not suffer from any ill feelings at all. It works by sending small electrical impulses along the palm of your hand and into the middle finger. It can be quite difficult to keep it in the correct position all the time, because as you move around it can slip out of position.
There are 5 levels of impulse, but I found the most comfortable level is 2. Any higher than that and I feel like my hair would stand on end!! It is not a very pleasant sensation! I cannot say I would recommend it, but I will persevere as it was so expensive.
Thanks Glenis, sorry to hear that it did not work on its own, but good to hear that you have managed to completely stop your sea sickness by using pills and a relief band. Martin.
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