Seasickness

[ColinW]

Hi all. I've been reading about yaks for a while and it looks great fun. This might seem a daft question but do you get seasick in a kayak? I used to have a boat and just couldn't use it on the sea. I could go out on lochs or lakes in 3 foot waves no problem but go out on the sea like a millpond and within five minutes of anchoring I'd be nauseous. I'd like to get a yak but the consequences of being ill in a boat I have to row could be nasty. So, is there anyone out there who is a bad sailor and if so how do you find it?

[SpeciMan]

Providing you don't go out in big swells you should be ok. I've only felt sick once on a kayak induced by tackling up whilst out on water in a big swell - a bit like reading in a car which can bring on sickness.

 

As you're positioned lower to the water and there's more chance you will be looking towards the horizon than down I don't think you will get sick as much. Zzippy and I have developed 'sea legs' from frequent kayak fishing - Zzippy has been prone to seasickness when out on the boats & is fine on a kayak.

 

You should be choosey as to when you go out - ideally paddling only in gentle winds. Todays a good day for it.. wish me luck!!!

[ColinW]

Cheers Speciman. To be honest I might buy a yak even if I can only use it in freshwater. I reckon it would be great for pike fishing on Windermere now the speed merchants are off. Getting dragged around by some of the beasts that lurk in there could be fun. It's just that I only live ten minutes from the sea and it would be a lot easier to justify the expense if I could go out for quick evening sessions.

Good luck for today, weather's great up in the NW today!

[Grant]

I have been out on my new yak, and found it to be fine. Think being closer to the water is hgelppful in itself.

[Tog]

I can get sea sick on a windsurf board!

I now use 'sea bands' - & I've sailed the Atlantic! - works for me.

[Simon Everett]

ColinW

there are enough of us about the place now for you to be able to "have a go" and see how you get on. Whereabouts are you? Sounds as though you are close to the Cumbria coast - in which case there are several folks up there already who go kayaking, in the St. Bees area if I remember correctly.

 

You won't get seasick though - your mind will be too occupied with trying to land that 30lb Tope!!

[Leon Roskilly]

I'm an expert on being sea-sick!

 

My first two days as a Merchant Seaman were amongst the worst in my life, but then I was over it (or so I thought).

 

Having cheerfully weathered the worst that the world's oceans could send my way, My stomach never again let me down (even though I was at times terrified!).

 

Or so I thought.

 

Climbing onto a ship painter's raft on a calm day in the harbour at Auckland, float-fishing for gar-fish, I came over very sweaty and felt awful.

 

It wasn't until I climbed ashore, thinking that I'd picked up some nasty fever from Africa, and immediately felt better, that I realised that the raft's gentle rocking from passing ferries had done for me.

 

A few year's later, now back to being a landlubber in Cairns, it was the trip on the ferry to Green Island that got me. (I wasn't expecting it, in fact I'd been boasting to my companions that I didn't need those pills, being an ex sailor and survived some mountainous seas in my time).

 

Back in the UK, and out in a angling charter - YecccHHHHH!

 

But quickly got used to the weekly trips.

 

Bought our own 14ft Dinghy and YeccccccHHHHHH! again.

 

It then dawned on me that it was the unexpected motion of a new vessel, or too long ashore that was the problem.

 

And so it has proven.

 

If I stick to the same boat, and go out often I'm fine!

 

Unfortunately, I haven't been out regularly for quite a while

 

And last time I felt queasy was floating on a blow-up truck innertube that I'd bullied off some friends' kids, about 2ft behind the surf line at Folkestone beach.

 

If you're the same as me (and everyone is different), a yak might make you queasy until you get used to it, then you won't have any problem at all.

 

Good Luck

 

Tight Lines - leon

 

[ 08. July 2005, 03:39 PM: Message edited by: Leon Roskilly ]

[ColinW]

Worst day of my life (which paradoxically contained one of the best moments) was spent in the approaches to the English Channel on a Looe shark trip in the early seventies. I was only about 14 and I think that set me up for a life as a poor sailor I was OK on the trip out but as soon as we started drifting side on to a huge Atlantic swell and the skipper hauled out his bag of decaying mackerel bits I was done for!

 

[ 08. July 2005, 09:23 PM: Message edited by: ColinW ]