Overview

The title is relatively straightforward. First and foremost, everyone on the water wants to stay healthy. But his is not a first aid text. Rather, this book will help you understand how the nautical environment stresses your body and what steps you can take to deal with it - to hopefully avoid needing first aid. Life on the water is different in so many ways than it is on land. Whether it is avoiding seasickness or dealing with the heat and dehydration the more you know the happier you and your crew will be. Likewise staying warm in the cold will allow you to better cope and hence better perform. Unless we are sitting around thinking about our next adventure we are always performing something (i.e. fishing, boating, cruising, or racing). If you are going to enjoy your cruise you better know what to expect in terms of hazardous marine animals or likely environmental hazards, like malaria or yellow fever. Finally, if you are to have a safe and productive voyage or adventure you must understand how maximize those basic attributes of sleep, nutrition, and exercise to keep you healthy and productive. And of course, you need to keep your brain and mind healthy which is why the last two chapter are devoted to psychology; solos sailing, group behavior, and sport and exercise psychology. If even one or two of these topics change your understanding and your behavior then this book will have been a worthwhile investment.

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9781734354324

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The first time I experienced seasickness I felt that I was going to die! But let me start at the beginning. In 1974 my wife and I moved to Boston; I for my neurology training and Elisse to complete her doctoral dissertation. We both decided to learn how to sail on the Charles River and we continued working and sailing for the next four years. After returning to Philadelphia, I decided in 1979 to take a navigation course which would circumnavigate the Delmarva Peninsula. We headed south out of Annapolis directly into a squall. It was during this squall that I experienced my first and worst attack of seasickness. By the second day I had recovered for the most part. After returning home, I realized that despite all of my training, I knew precious little about seasickness. So, as any young physician just out of training would do, I researched the topic, discovered that it really is a neurologic problem, and decided to present the topic at my hospital's Neurology Grand Rounds. Since that was well received, I wrote an article on seasickness for Yachting Magazine (January 1981). I realized seasickness was but one of a number of conditions that sailors should be more familiar with, and out of that research came the first edition of this book entitled Dr. Cohen's Healthy Sailor Book [the title was the publisher's idea]. The reviews were positive, the sales were good, and I teamed up with 2 physicians from Maine and we put on sailing seminars up and down the east coast of the U.S.¬¬; Health On the Water. Then family (and my career) intervened. I raced keelboats on the Chesapeake in the 80s and my wife and I would continue to sail mainly in the Chesapeake and charter in the Caribbean. But over the last 5 years, I began to re-visit the topics in my original text and discovered that much has changed. The advances in diagnosis and treatment has been nothing short of revolutionary in my lifetime-when I started, we didn't even have CT scans. This medical revolution has overshadowed the accumulating knowledge pertaining to the human body in a marine environment. One obvious difference is the title. Whereas the first edition was concerned mainly with sailing, I realized that powerboaters were just as knowledge-bare when it came to the human body as sailors. They (and their crew and passengers) have to deal with seasickness, heat and dehydration, and cold weather just as much as sailing types. They have the same problems with skin and hazardous marine life, since the sun and marine animals couldn't care less whether you are powered by wind or motor. In fact, even people who are cruising on large vessels would do well to understand how their body reacts differently on the water. At the very least they absolutely need to understand communicable diseases and whether or not they need vaccination. The three topics that everyone must understand are sleep, exercise, and nutrition. Both the sleep and nutrition chapters have been thoroughly re-written. I am surprised at how little people (physicians included!) know about sleep-and how vital it is, especially on the water. At the same time, I am equally surprised by how gullible we are in terms of wasting money on supplements of little or no value and of unknown provenance. The exercise chapter in particular addresses the differing needs of cruising boaters, cruising sailors, and even racing sailors. And the psychology chapter has undergone a major facelift. Psychology 1 deals primarily with crew behavior-including solo sailing and the problems of small group behavior. It also discusses how you captains can avoid pesky crew and on the other hand, what crew should look for in a captain. Psychology 2 on the surface is concerned with the sailing athlete but in truth, it is applicable to everyone: goal setting, mental imagery and mindfulness are just as important to those of us whose athletic skills are just a memory.

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