MedAire provides services to over 50 per cent of the world’s largest superyachts and has looked at over 10,000 cases in the last five years, to uncover the most common ailments onboard amongst crew and guests.

It found that urinary infections were the most commonly seen illness onboard, representing about 4 per cent of the total number of cases and skewed heavily in gender towards females. As Brent Palmer, Director of Education at MedAire explains, “the yachting environment lends itself to a high occurrence of UTIs: warm temperatures and inconsistent water intake can hugely increase the chance of contracting a UTI, so we always recommend good hydration and regular passing of urine to mitigate these risks”

Brent Palmer, Director of Education at MedAire

Of all of MedAire’s 18 medical case categories, dermatological saw the highest number of cases, closely followed by musculoskeletal. The third largest category by case numbers was: ear, nose and throat. As Palmer puts it, this can be simply explained:

“On a yacht, you’re in close confines with each other so naturally throat complaints like pharyngitis and tonsilitis are spread very easily between the crew”. He continues to say that “over the years we’ve launched numerous basic hygiene awareness campaigns to mitigate the spread of such viruses to little avail, but it was only really when COVID hit that these started to make an impact, as people were forced to take hygiene measures more seriously. As a happy consequence of COVID, we, therefore, saw a decrease in this type of illness, which had been increasing every year up to that point”.

Ear pain also appeared within the most common cases, which tends to be skewed heavily towards swimmers. Dr Philip Bryson, Diving Specialist at MedAire says that “even visibly clean water can contain plankton, protozoa and bugs that are invisible to the naked eye - if your ear canal is not properly dried out, small amounts of water can pool, causing infections, especially if there is wax in the ear.”

He continues to say that “crew and guests should always try and ensure that their ears are drained after being in the water by gently tapping or shaking a tilted head, as well as keeping hair off the ears after swimming to allow air to naturally circulate. If discomfort does arise, knowing which products to use or indeed not to use is imperative, using cotton buds for example could push bugs further into the ear and worsen the situation”.  

Back complaints and lacerations/cuts also featured heavily within the top yachting cases, attributable to the nature of the yachting environment, working around heavy machinery, operated by young fit individuals who may lack good lifting technique. “As in any remote environment, having access to excellent medical advice and information is incredibly useful – not only to provide peace of mind for the patient but also potentially avoiding any unnecessary detours for shoreside treatment if at sea or on charter,” concludes Dr Bryson.

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