Extreme sailing medicine: Injuries and illnesses

Abstract

Many features allow modern sailing to take place alongside other extreme sports, and these in particular mean challenging the laws of nature, pushing technology to the limit, spectacularity, and the need for its participants to possess technical skills and competencies in addition to physical fitness. The various sailing classes greatly vary in the demands they place on athletes, putting sailing crews at risk of different types of injuries and illnesses. Both recreational and novice dinghy sailors report mainly acute injuries: that are, in particular, head contusions from hitting the boom and spinnaker pole, cuts and lacerations to the hands and knee contusions due to falls and collisions with equipment. At the other extreme, prevailing injuries among Olympic-class athletes tend to overuse injuries, in particular, to the back and knees, due to specific activities such as hikingand also to a poor balance between work and recovery time. In America’s Cup crews, grinders, mastmen, and bowmen are mainly prone to injuries, that are mainly muscle contractures, tendinopathies, and sprains to the upper limbs and back. Intense training, psychological stress, cold and damp also expose these sailors to upper respiratory tract infections. In offshore and oceanic yacht racing, a large rate of medical conditions consists ofillnesses, that mainly affect the urinary and gastrointestinal tract and the skin. Acute injuries may be favoured by severe fatigue and sleep loss, especially during solo races.