Fancy a 60-80ft boat abroad, but a major hurdle to overcome
Discussion
I do a lot of coastal racing on a 35 foot yacht and get horribly, horribly seasick. I do the following:
- I avoid sailing where wind is against tide for extended periods, it makes the chop of the waves really nasty. Instavom.
- Keep busy. Luckily I'm usually running the foredeck or mast on our boat so there is always something to do. On a motorboat, helm, keep lookout keep your eyes on the horizon.
- A weird one I know, but I find having some sort of hard sweet on the go keeps my my stomach from churning too much.
- I avoid sailing where wind is against tide for extended periods, it makes the chop of the waves really nasty. Instavom.
- Keep busy. Luckily I'm usually running the foredeck or mast on our boat so there is always something to do. On a motorboat, helm, keep lookout keep your eyes on the horizon.
- A weird one I know, but I find having some sort of hard sweet on the go keeps my my stomach from churning too much.
TTwiggy said:
I might have a yacht in Vilamoura some time in the next 12 months. It will be a 33-36ft long sailing yacht, so you could always come out on that - after a few hours healed over at 25+ degrees your wife will think that anything you buy is a cruise liner by comparison! 
I took my wife out sailing, with grand plans of a transatlantic jaunt together at a later stage. However she was vomiting pretty much non-stop the whole time. On a lake. With barely F3 winds. Looks like it will be a solo journey.P.s. I did put this down to her not wanting to get involved on the boat (I think she thought going on boat involved cocktails at the jetty).
Helming is probably the best way for a beginner to keep the mind off being sea-sick, especially if they are not confident as I've found they worry more so keeps their mind focused.
Right gents ... thanks again for your input so far, really appreciate your time .... things seem to be progressing quite nicely and turning into "A Plan".
The Mrs says she's up for giving it a go ... and now we've booked a trip and have dates etc, I've contacted several charter companies about what sort of boats they have available, and to explain the circumstances ...
>> The first company emailed back saying a flybridge boat such as a Sunseeker Manhattan 60 should be fine, or they have a Sessa Marine 54, but best to check the weather before we go.
>> The second company called me and explained that he wouldn't recommend a flybridge boat as they have a higher centre of gravity and given our circumstances would recommend a single level boat without flybridge for our first trip.
Certainly seemed to know his stuff and I liked the fact that he said; the most important thing is that you all enjoy the day, so if you book and the weather is bad that day, we'll roll it over and over and if you're really unlucky and can't go out all ... we'll simply give you a refund rather than get you out when it's not right to go (you can't say fairer than that!).
Options are:-
http://www.medboat.com/sessa-marine-fly-54-puerto-...
http://www.medboat.com/boat-charters/costa-de-sol/...
http://www.marbellaboatcharter.com/resources/Princ...
Any suggestions as to which you think best to go for?
The Mrs says she's up for giving it a go ... and now we've booked a trip and have dates etc, I've contacted several charter companies about what sort of boats they have available, and to explain the circumstances ...
>> The first company emailed back saying a flybridge boat such as a Sunseeker Manhattan 60 should be fine, or they have a Sessa Marine 54, but best to check the weather before we go.
>> The second company called me and explained that he wouldn't recommend a flybridge boat as they have a higher centre of gravity and given our circumstances would recommend a single level boat without flybridge for our first trip.
Certainly seemed to know his stuff and I liked the fact that he said; the most important thing is that you all enjoy the day, so if you book and the weather is bad that day, we'll roll it over and over and if you're really unlucky and can't go out all ... we'll simply give you a refund rather than get you out when it's not right to go (you can't say fairer than that!).
Options are:-
http://www.medboat.com/sessa-marine-fly-54-puerto-...
http://www.medboat.com/boat-charters/costa-de-sol/...
http://www.marbellaboatcharter.com/resources/Princ...
Any suggestions as to which you think best to go for?
For reference, for future Portugal trips I can strongly recommend Martin Northey for any general advice on motorboats, and he's well connected in Portugal being an RYA Examiner. He has a very well stablished training business, which you can see from his website. He's lived and cruised extensively on boats previously. He helped a lot with practical advice for us, and my wife also used to find sailing difficult. His website is:
http://www.martinnorthey.net
We had him on board our sail boat back in 2006 I think. He mostly does work with motorboats now, but he came highly recommended. He's a superb instructor, very calm and laid back, real gentleman, and great company. Our scenario was that we'd just bought a wooden classic yawl, and were nervous about her marina handling (long keel, 45 footer) so we had him on board to help us out as he has previous experience of such boats. He also helped us with familiarization with our new yacht, and figuring out short handed techniques suited to our boat and type of sailing. Great few days, and he wrote about it on his website. (Google Martin's name and our boat Frenesi)
Regarding your partner's seasickness, lots of advice already given, so I'd just reinforce the point about giving her something to do. If she's practically minded, she might enjoy navigating? On sailboats the wives normally steer. Also my wife finds the worst place to be is below deck when she's feeling seasick, much better on deck in the fresh air - though on a motorboat it needs to be a deck with no diesel fumes.
The other advice Martin drummed into me is not to be too ambitious about planning trips at first. Lots of men are drawn to the challenge of the sea, and it appeals to 'take on' a passage that they've not done before... but it's easy to forget that the crew need to have fun, especially family crews. Seems you are well aware of this danger from your approach....
My approach has been gently to try new things witht the wife and kids, and occasionally do more challenging trips with male friends. Now she's enjoying the sailing as her confidence has grown over the years.
Best of luck.
http://www.martinnorthey.net
We had him on board our sail boat back in 2006 I think. He mostly does work with motorboats now, but he came highly recommended. He's a superb instructor, very calm and laid back, real gentleman, and great company. Our scenario was that we'd just bought a wooden classic yawl, and were nervous about her marina handling (long keel, 45 footer) so we had him on board to help us out as he has previous experience of such boats. He also helped us with familiarization with our new yacht, and figuring out short handed techniques suited to our boat and type of sailing. Great few days, and he wrote about it on his website. (Google Martin's name and our boat Frenesi)
Regarding your partner's seasickness, lots of advice already given, so I'd just reinforce the point about giving her something to do. If she's practically minded, she might enjoy navigating? On sailboats the wives normally steer. Also my wife finds the worst place to be is below deck when she's feeling seasick, much better on deck in the fresh air - though on a motorboat it needs to be a deck with no diesel fumes.
The other advice Martin drummed into me is not to be too ambitious about planning trips at first. Lots of men are drawn to the challenge of the sea, and it appeals to 'take on' a passage that they've not done before... but it's easy to forget that the crew need to have fun, especially family crews. Seems you are well aware of this danger from your approach....
My approach has been gently to try new things witht the wife and kids, and occasionally do more challenging trips with male friends. Now she's enjoying the sailing as her confidence has grown over the years.
Best of luck.
I toyed with the idea of getting a Sunseeker Predator 58 as day boat/party boat, to moor at Lagos near my villa, but it just wasn't practical whatever the man maths and in addition to my chronic sea sickness, it was a non starter. Hell of a lot of money and I'd never be able to truly enjoy it.
Just a quick update .... after our trip.
I had exchanged many emails & telephone calls with Michal at Marbella Charters, who have an office in Puerto Banus port, before our trip.
We met with the guys the day after we arrived and they gave me daily weather updates and put the day back several times as the weather kept changing .... they even said if the swell didn't reduce they would refund our deposit, but fortunately we got to go on the Saturday for a short 4hr charter. They managed to secure us a Sunseeker Manhattan 66 which was just the sort of boat I fancied.
The Mrs was juiced up on Stugeron 15 travel pills and wore the Sea Bands we got from Boots Chemist .... and she didn't get seasickness at all (which was a raving result), although she did get a little scared when the waves started getting bigger and the bow of the boat started rising and crashing a bit heavier .... but to be fair she was great and even said that seeing a group of Dolphins and some baby dolphins swimming side by side was one of the highlights of her holiday. The crew sat with us for a further hour while we all had a beer on the boat when we had moored in the port. ALL IN ALL A GREAT DAY !!
So, thanks for your help, advice and suggestions - all very much appreciated and really helped us.
If anyone else is in a similar situation and looking to charter a boat of any size, in the Marbella area, I genunely can't recommend these guys enough .... (I'm not on commission Mods - just had a good experience)
MARBELLA CHARTER, S.A.
Tel: +34 952 814 159 – Fax: +34 952 814 130
Edif. Levante 10 – 29660 – Puerto Banús – Marbella – Spain
www.marbellacharter.net
charter@marinamarbella.net
So to sum up our trip, whilst it's fair to say that she isn't going to be sailing around the world single handedly next year, we did have a great day out and the wife is even happy for me to get a boat (on the condition that I get her a villa) and said she'll come out on it on the calmer days ... but thats all obviously a long way off and I'll be looking into doing some sort of training and certificates in Southampton/Cowes etc as a starting point - although there is a rather nice Predator 82 that I have seen in the classifieds ha ha
Cheers all - thanks for the help.
I had exchanged many emails & telephone calls with Michal at Marbella Charters, who have an office in Puerto Banus port, before our trip.
We met with the guys the day after we arrived and they gave me daily weather updates and put the day back several times as the weather kept changing .... they even said if the swell didn't reduce they would refund our deposit, but fortunately we got to go on the Saturday for a short 4hr charter. They managed to secure us a Sunseeker Manhattan 66 which was just the sort of boat I fancied.
The Mrs was juiced up on Stugeron 15 travel pills and wore the Sea Bands we got from Boots Chemist .... and she didn't get seasickness at all (which was a raving result), although she did get a little scared when the waves started getting bigger and the bow of the boat started rising and crashing a bit heavier .... but to be fair she was great and even said that seeing a group of Dolphins and some baby dolphins swimming side by side was one of the highlights of her holiday. The crew sat with us for a further hour while we all had a beer on the boat when we had moored in the port. ALL IN ALL A GREAT DAY !!
So, thanks for your help, advice and suggestions - all very much appreciated and really helped us.
If anyone else is in a similar situation and looking to charter a boat of any size, in the Marbella area, I genunely can't recommend these guys enough .... (I'm not on commission Mods - just had a good experience)
MARBELLA CHARTER, S.A.
Tel: +34 952 814 159 – Fax: +34 952 814 130
Edif. Levante 10 – 29660 – Puerto Banús – Marbella – Spain
www.marbellacharter.net
charter@marinamarbella.net
So to sum up our trip, whilst it's fair to say that she isn't going to be sailing around the world single handedly next year, we did have a great day out and the wife is even happy for me to get a boat (on the condition that I get her a villa) and said she'll come out on it on the calmer days ... but thats all obviously a long way off and I'll be looking into doing some sort of training and certificates in Southampton/Cowes etc as a starting point - although there is a rather nice Predator 82 that I have seen in the classifieds ha ha
Cheers all - thanks for the help.
S1... my family and quite a few friends own yachts on the south coast and down in Marbella - you may find that Mrs S1 likes to be on the boat whilst it's moored, enjoying cocktails etc and leaves the trips out to the boys - this is how my mother deals with things and it works great - there's also those calm days where she's happy to go out too. Have fun, it's a great world to be part of 
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