[wannabe4]

At a recent Mahina Expeditions seminar in Seattle, John Neal covered this topic. He strongly recommends "Emergen-C". If you google their website go the the flashing "Latest News" section on the right side of the page you will find the section on sea sickness. John and Amanda have been working with a physician and claim this method works very well.
Good Luck!

 

[SailNet Archive]

Gotta agree with Sailing Dog, most of it just getting used too the motion, good homeopathic remedies I've heard of are not only ginger as mentioned, but baking soda dissolved in water, raw cider vinegar about a shot glass full, and of course heaving your guts out over the side sometimes helps.

I think for some people it is also psychological, my mother-in-law for example, she convinces herself she is going to get sick. One time, as an experiment, we took her along with my kids in slanted maze, I told before going in that people often get sick in this maze, as in seasick. Now there was no claim of any kind for this, it was just something I made up; and sure 'nuff, she went running out of there to the head.

Again, as Sailing Dog mentioned, what you eat and how you prepare has a lot to do with it.

 

[Zanshin]

I don't know about the cure, but I recently found out the cause in a book:

Watching a fellow sailor being sick over the rail, a colleague remarked "No wonder you're seasick, your stomach is full of puke!"

 

[hellosailor]

"good homeopathic remedies I've heard of are not only ginger as mentioned,"
Oh does that hurt. Ginger is not homeopathy. A homeopathic remedy typically means "dunk the ginger in this water, dilute it a millionfold, now drink some and the water molecules will resonate with the memory of the ginger, even though there's none actually in it any more."

That's why many of us rank homeopathy one step BELOW Voodoo.

Ginger is an old traditional remedy, call it a folk remedy if you want, call it an herbal remedy, just don't call it Voodoo with the "H"word, please. Ginger also has been scientifically tested and confirmed to work by known and repeatable actions in the body--unlike Homeopathic remedies.

 

[CapnTony]

Many years ago an old crew boat captain told me he always drank dill pickle juice to stop from getting sick while on the stand-by buoy. He swore by it, and was old as dirt and had been working the Gulf for 40+ years. Can't say I've ever had to resort to cures, and I've been in some nasty stuff...just one of the lucky ones, but I always carry dill pickles...just in case.

 

[hellosailor]

Argh, that'd be Captain Clausen, well known for his evil sense of humour and clever marketing of the family's pickle products. Not allowed to practice medicine in any of the NATO countries though.

 

[sanctuarysam]

just the visual alone...

I used to suffer from sea sickness all the time... However one day when underway - in rough seas standing watch with the others - someone brought in some chocolate..naturally having not had dinner I nibbled at it piece by piece...drinking coffee until the queasiness got the better of me - I couldn't leave station so I barfed into my coffee cup...having done so - of course the riles from fellow shipmates...

The only way to shut them up - I drank the regurgitated remains in my coffee cup after five minutes of listening to the jives....that shut them up (two left station because they couldn't handle it) and from that moment forward - never again got queasy or sick at sea ...sometimes it can be more mental than physical I guess...

Another technique that works is putting a band aide or taping a cottonball right below the ear...it puts pressure on the nerves that are related to balance from the ear and helps some maintain ....

never been seasick..seen countless others get 'green' though...
hearing someone else 'york' makes me quesy..and the thought of regurg..ewwwwww
however..if it works..well it works..
it is what it is...

 

[TrueBlue]

While pregnant, my wife swore by the remedial success dill pickles had over morning sickness. Although we've never gotten seasick, I never thought dill pickles would have the same affect on mal de mer.

 

[Tangleberry]

Transderm-V

Transderm-V is a scopalamine patch applied behind the ear.

I never get sick, but my wife does. The Transderm works perfectly for her once we discovered the secret. Cut the patch in half and only use half. This gives you enough of the drug to stop seasickness but not so much as to cause side effects.

Maybe the standard dose (a whole patch) is OK if you are a large person, but for my 110 lb. wife, it was way too much.

Apply the day before leaving. It lasts for several days, and by then she usually has her sea legs.

 

[Wings33]

I hate to keep saying this because I sound like a broken record. But, I swear by Gookinaid's Vitalyte. It doesn't sit in your stomach and acts like an IV would act. I don't suffer from motion/seasickness a lot, but my mom has extreme motion sickness and when she came to visit us on the boat she drank it everyday and it did help with the queasiness. On a side note, I drank it during my tumor treatments and it was the only thing I could keep down which didn't make me nauseous! I also ate a lot of Saltines and bread. Hope that helps! Here's the website, Vitalyte : Home or you can buy it at REI which is where I get it. As far as the Saltines go, try the low sodium ones they seem to work better for me.

 

[SailNet Archive]

I like the dill pickle idea, goes back to the vinegar.

 

[2Gringos]

I was on a small hi-res survey boat in the GOM once looking for a sunken boat, and we had a couple of the clients people on board who got sick. The cook had each of them take a tablespoon of the clear Karo corn syrup, and both of them were up and about shortly thereafter. Then he gave them some saltine crackers to chew on. They were at dinner that night.

I have suggested it to other people several times over the years, telling the story about how I watched it work that time, and they have reported similar results. I don't know if its the heavy, sweet nature of the syrup, or psychological if told it's a cure, but I have seen it work.

 

[sailingdog]

Saltine crackers are often good at doing the trick since they tend to neutralize the acid in the stomach and put some mass in there to help settle it.

 

[artbyjody]

A good article on the subject...[The Causes of Seasickness part 1]

 

[hellosailor]

Tangleberry-
FWIW, you're not supposed to cut the patches. If you do, they leak on the cut and can become less reliable. In order to adjust the dosage, you are better off putting a piece of foil/plastic/etc. under half of the patch, so it only makes 1/2 contact on your skin.
You can also get scope as "Scopace" pill form, which allows the dosage to be adjusted very easily, and kicks in faster especially if you allow it to dissolve under your tongue. (Goes to the blood supply very quickly.)
Interestingly I asked my doctor and my pharmacist about dosage versus body mass--and neither found any information about that. They suggested it is targeted for the brain, and since all brains are about the same size, that body mass might not matter much. (I still think dosage depends somewhat more on individual tolerance and response, so there's room for tailoring, just like with most meds.)

 

[sailingdog]

Also, the cut edge will generally give a much higher dose rate than the uncut part of the patch.

 

[Jim H]

I rather liked this thread about sea sickness at ybw--

Yachting and Boating World forums: What is the best for preventing sea sickness?

In particular, there are posts from someone who was part of seasickness tests in the 1970s. It's interesting that he thought himself relatively immune to seasickness until he was made violently ill by sitting in a static chair for 10 minutes-- the cause of the reaction was simply a moving projected horizon image on a hemispheric screen around him.

 

[Zanshin]

JimH - I can believe that description about the method they used in the tests. The first time I did a jet simulator it was in an actual cockpit that was stationary, but surrounded by display screens (old CRT crappy resolution ones as well). I had over 2000 hours in planes at that time and was an aerobatics instructor so I was pretty cocky about being able to handle a military jet sim. They started me off at FL 300 and within 120 seconds I was about to lose my lunch from vertigo but fortunately I crashed the darned thing and that let my senses settle down again

So far I've not gotten seasick but I have a deep-rooted fear of getting incapacitated while alone on the boat. On one crossing I felt close to getting sick and had a couple of ginger cookies that worked really well.

 

[ScuzzMonkey]

I haven't seen this mentioned in the thread yet, forgive me if I'm repeating someone though...

Just had some friends get back from Mexico, where they had gone out for a day fishing on the ocean in an open panga boat. One of the wives, after a couple hours in the swells, got seasick, and the guide quickly sliced up a lime and had her sniff it. She perked right up and didn't have any problems for the rest of the day.

I'd never heard of anyone sniffing limes before but thought I would throw it in the pot, both to see if anyone else has heard that one and for the more adventurous to try and report back.

 

[paulvalles]

We were two days out from Cape May enroute to Portugal when we received a Mayday from another sailboat heading to NY from the Bahamas. The skipper had a crew member who was unconscious from dehydration caused be seasickness. We relayed the Mayday to a container ship that passed us earlier that morning. They turned around and picked up the crewmember.
I'm not prone to seasickness, but on this trip I was sick five times. The worst case came when we were past the Azores where the gulf stream hits the European continental shelf as we passed thru a storm crossing our course. I felt like a water bug in a Maytag. I couldn't keep 7up or crackers down. I was beyond the prevention stage. I was seriously sick for several days. My skipper tried an old Cruising Club of America cure called Gatorade. This is not a commercial. I think any sports drink high in potassium to keep the heart going is worth a try. I started drinking just a shot glass full and progressed from there until I recovered after the storm passed.
Fwiw I think my first bout of mal de mar was psychological. Once I realized the boat wasn''t going to sink after the first gale I was okay. The strobe light later in the voyage was another cause. Everything in the boat got damp after awhile and the moisture caused the battery to give off a rotten egg smell. After I got rid of it I was fine until we were off Portugal.