Not an uncommon condition.
Strange story… I worked in an electronic shock system whose control algorithm was invented by a guy who got motion sickness in cars. I told him we used him as the test passenger, confused and a little upset when I said that. I explained if the ride made him comfortable, we must be tuning his algorithm correctly.
You are right. I meant that a slower oscillation causes sea sickness. Boats have a slower oscillation that takes some time to get used to. Quicker oscillations feel choppy, and sports cars have quicker oscillations.
Edit: You would think that an aircraft carrier would be easy to adapt to. It can be one of the hardest ships fr some people to get used to. At the back, they are pretty smooth. Since you are trying to get airplanes to land there, you don’t want it going up and down. If you stand all the way back on the flight deck, you see the front pitching up and down 30-70 feet depending on sea conditions (on a good day). It also makes kind of a circle as it goes a little to one side on the way up and comes down on the other side.
When you are in a compartment up on the bow, under the flight deck, it is like being on an elevator that never stops. Unlike a movie, you don’t actually have any visual cues to this movement. When your stomach is empty, or when it is full, it is not much of a problem. But about an hour after leaving the mess decks, you see the newbies manning the nearest trash cans, getting a taste of that last meal for a second time.
When I was an early tween, we went out on a fishing boat in the Gulf on 1/2 day trip (Tampa area) and I almost got sick at the very back of the boat, the Captain said to go to the front, I think it was pitching up and down around 10 foot, I thought that would be worse but I felt great at the front of the boat… It was about a 35ish foot boat…
If one end of the boat doesn’t work, try the other! A practical solution.
Only once did I get sick from motion. I went on the park troopers ride three times in a row. Now my poor dad made tilt-a-whirls but could not ride one without getting sick. Never had a problem in the water though and we went through some pretty rough water.
I happened to watch an old Johnny Carson re-run last night. He had just returned from his summer holiday in the south of France. He told a funny boat-related story: Part of his vacation was riding on a friend’s yacht, an 8 hour night-time trip to Portofino (Italy, I think) . The weather turned bad midway, and the boat pitched and rolled and yawed so much everybody on board got deathly sick. Worse they couldn’t park the boat once they got to Portofino, sea too rough, so they had to turn around and go back. The weather was even worse on the return trip. The only thing they were happy about is they survived the trip. Of course the next day, they no longer had the boat, and the weather was perfect, sea as smooth as glass … lol …
We were on the Mediterranean island to island with a support boat to depart passengers. I’d be up about dawn on the stern and it was so smooth it was hard to tell we departed. They said the week before though it was so rough they couldn’t shuttle the guests when they anchored. Takes your chance.