NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Bonus Exotica January 2011
From: Hewitt Schlereth
Date: 2011 Jan 16, 18:26 -0400
From: Hewitt Schlereth
Date: 2011 Jan 16, 18:26 -0400
Have any of you heard of the combination of drugs developed by NASA for the astronauts?
Promethazine and ephedrine.
NASA's dosage as I remember it from an article in Sail magazine in the 70s was 50mg prometh and 25 ephedrine. For me I found just 25mg alone of promethazine (brand name Phenergan) worked. A side benefit was it helped me sleep in rough conditions. I also found that even taken after the onset of symptoms, it would work if I was able to keep it down for 10 minutes or so.
I think you need a doctor's prescription in the US, but I was able to get it without last year in the BVI.
Hewitt
Promethazine and ephedrine.
NASA's dosage as I remember it from an article in Sail magazine in the 70s was 50mg prometh and 25 ephedrine. For me I found just 25mg alone of promethazine (brand name Phenergan) worked. A side benefit was it helped me sleep in rough conditions. I also found that even taken after the onset of symptoms, it would work if I was able to keep it down for 10 minutes or so.
I think you need a doctor's prescription in the US, but I was able to get it without last year in the BVI.
Hewitt
On Sat, Jan 15, 2011 at 5:18 AM, Bill <billyrem42@earthlink.net> wrote:
On 1/14/11 6:21 PM, Patrick Goold wrote:
Alan is joking, but he raises an issue of practical navigation that I
have not seen anyone address before, one that concerns me, and that is
seasickness. I am not overly susceptible to it, but I am also not one
of those blessed individuals who is immune. I have never been sick in
the bay but in the open ocean, if the wind hits 25 knots and stays that
way for a while, then the swell is enough to make me queazy.
Scopalamine works well for me but even with the patch, making meals or
updating the log or most anything done down below will, under those
conditions, be challenging. I cannot imagine taking sights or doing the
meticulous tabulations involved in sight reduction. Is it hopeless for
me or is there a way to cope?
I strikes me I sort of ignored your specific "Cel Nav" query in my last response.
First accept that anything done on a small craft is AT LEAST twice as hard as doing it on land (at least for those of us not as sea on a small craft for very long periods of time). For me, that includes making sandwiches and cognitive tasks.
Second, Cel Nav is not GPS (instantaneous feedback) or coastal piloting. Its primary use IMHO is crossing vast expanses of water. Hopefully you can calculate where you were at a given point in time with reasonable precision/accuracy given the circumstances at the time. Therefore there is no reason to bury you nose in a book until you are feeding your lunch to the fish. Slow down, take it one step at a time and take a break--before needed.
The captains of old were using log tables/haversines and a slate tablet. Given an NA and calculator, what's your rush ;-)
Bill B.
