How do you organise your food on a long passage?

[Halcyon Yachts]

I wrote a blog offering 10 top tips when provisioning a yacht:

http://www.halcyonyachts.com/top-10-tips-when-provisioning-a-yacht/

I'd love to hear any other pearls of wisdom?

Many thanks,

Pete

 

[AndrewB]

Useful ideas, Halcyon. My thoughts, which take a rather different tack, are here:

http://www.yachtsentinel.co.uk/Provisioning/provisioning.htm

 

[vyv_cox]

Like this

 

[rivonia]

Like this

Alchoholics annonimus? LOL.

 

[BobnLesley]

Like this

You shouldn't be overloading a boat like that; dump those big-beans and the milk.

 

[KellysEye]

Useful ideas, Halcyon. My thoughts, which take a rather different tack, are here: http://www.yachtsentinel.co.uk/Provi...ovisioning.htm

Spot on that's what we did, although Jane and I wrote the list and went shopping together.

 

[sailaboutvic]

Alchoholics annonimus? LOL.

And that only for a four day cruise

 

[James Marinero]

Delegate it to one of the crew - per Halcyon's tip #1.

Have a menu plan.
Stowage locations and contents listed.
Each evening take out the next days meals and put them in the day locker, including frozen food to be defrosted.

What was a problem was dealing with the waste and recycling.

 

[rotrax]

A friend who is a senior skipper on the JSASTC boats out of HMS Hornet told of getting ten Royal Marines to take to the Canaries and back in one of the Nic 55's.

He gave the senior Marine the money to provision the boat while he sorted the boats defects.

The marines came back with cases of beer and pot noodles-enough for two weeks.

He was not impressed and hard words were said....................................

 

[lindsay]

Webb chiles, 74, american author yachtsman, who is currently on his sixth circumnavigatio, seems to have strong beliefs in keeping things simple. When on or near to shore he eats "normally". When on passage he eats only freeze dried food. Cooking is simply boiling water to mix in a plastic container. Minimum weight, minimum garbage, no washing up,

Check his site: inthepresentsea.com, particularly his journal

by the way Webb is a fine writer, and many of his books can be downloaded free.



by the

 

[jdc]

So my top 10 start:

1. do it yourself
2. decide what you want to eat and start to cook - no point in planning menus - so just bring raw ingredients. We never have dried or pre-prepared meals.
3. one isn't doing much aerobic exercise on passage so you don't need that much food, esp if it's hot
4. I don't each snacks ashore so don't miss them aboard.
5. Take good coffee (tea? yuk)
... I could go on, but it's clear that we don't all agree here!

In a more serious vein, I'd add:
1. buy vegetables which you are sure have never been in a cold-store. They will keep, whereas ones from supermarkets will go rotten in a few days. In Europe this means buying from farmer's markets or direct from growers. Advice one reads for those crossing the Atlantic is usually to buy in the Canaries. I disagree: all veg we bought there was rotten in 4 days whereas that we got in Cape Verde from women sitting by the roadside was cheaper, better quality and kept.

2. Vacuum pack things. Flour, museli, pasta, rice etc into 1kg sacks as these then pack away into lockers really well, and don't provide much rubbish. Also pack cheeses and especially butter, and then bury at the bottom of the fridge - they'll keep for 10 weeks like this. A vacuum packer is less than £50 and a wonderful investment.

3. Meat. If going to cold places then we take vacuum packed beef and lamb but never chicken or pork as these simply don't keep. Vacuum packed beef will last 28 days in the fridge provided you take whole joints: chopped meat, eg stewing steak or mince go off much faster. Buy from a proper old-fashioned butcher, never from a supermarket. Explain to the butcher what you are trying to achieve.
If going to hot places we just don't eat much red meat but take loads of chorizo and sometimes a jamon Iberico hanging in the forward heads. And loads of tinned fish - but I like it, you may not.

4. Drink. I'm not talking coastal cruising where by all means take whatever you like of course, but ocean crossing. some deprecate drinking at all when at sea I find that the whole crew having a modest drink: can of beer, glass of wine, glass of pastis, whatever just before dinner adds a rhythm to the day and adds to crew morale.

5. Bake bread, proper wholemeal bread, done from scratch with yeast and flour etc. Eschew part baked rubbish.

 

[BradleyC]

I wrote a blog offering 10 top tips when provisioning a yacht:

http://www.halcyonyachts.com/top-10-tips-when-provisioning-a-yacht/

I'd love to hear any other pearls of wisdom?

Many thanks,

Pete

Hi Pete,

This site is really good for tips on provisoning http://theboatgalley.com/provisioning/

The best book I've found for baking bread by hand is a book called "Brilliant bread" by James Morton. I've tried several of the recipes and they have all come out really well. He also explains how to make sourdough, which might come in handy as bread made with sour dough keeps really well (about 2-3 weeks). Could be a good trick to know on a long passage...

 

[shan]

So my top 10 start:

1. do it yourself
2. decide what you want to eat and start to cook - no point in planning menus - so just bring raw ingredients. We never have dried or pre-prepared meals.
3. one isn't doing much aerobic exercise on passage so you don't need that much food, esp if it's hot
4. I don't each snacks ashore so don't miss them aboard.
5. Take good coffee (tea? yuk)
... I could go on, but it's clear that we don't all agree here!

In a more serious vein, I'd add:
1. buy vegetables which you are sure have never been in a cold-store. They will keep, whereas ones from supermarkets will go rotten in a few days. In Europe this means buying from farmer's markets or direct from growers. Advice one reads for those crossing the Atlantic is usually to buy in the Canaries. I disagree: all veg we bought there was rotten in 4 days whereas that we got in Cape Verde from women sitting by the roadside was cheaper, better quality and kept.

2. Vacuum pack things. Flour, museli, pasta, rice etc into 1kg sacks as these then pack away into lockers really well, and don't provide much rubbish. Also pack cheeses and especially butter, and then bury at the bottom of the fridge - they'll keep for 10 weeks like this. A vacuum packer is less than £50 and a wonderful investment.

3. Meat. If going to cold places then we take vacuum packed beef and lamb but never chicken or pork as these simply don't keep. Vacuum packed beef will last 28 days in the fridge provided you take whole joints: chopped meat, eg stewing steak or mince go off much faster. Buy from a proper old-fashioned butcher, never from a supermarket. Explain to the butcher what you are trying to achieve.
If going to hot places we just don't eat much red meat but take loads of chorizo and sometimes a jamon Iberico hanging in the forward heads. And loads of tinned fish - but I like it, you may not.

4. Drink. I'm not talking coastal cruising where by all means take whatever you like of course, but ocean crossing. some deprecate drinking at all when at sea I find that the whole crew having a modest drink: can of beer, glass of wine, glass of pastis, whatever just before dinner adds a rhythm to the day and adds to crew morale.

5. Bake bread, proper wholemeal bread, done from scratch with yeast and flour etc. Eschew part baked rubbish.

Really good tips. I would add:

6. Try catching fish - always very satisfying if you catch anything.

7. If you happen to have the opportunity to eat out, take some containers with and order a few extra meals. Also, don't be scared to buy street food to eat on the boat.

 

[Neil_Y]

I started from number of meals needed with a safety margin if you end up going slowly.

30 days = for main meal, 30 carbs, 30 protein, 30 veg. When buying just select what you like, rice, pasta, tatoes etc. Beans, soya mince, cheese, eggs.
This way whoever is cooking can be creative with herbs and spices as long as they just use 1 portion pp of the carb , veg, protein.

Favourite was vegy cottage pie and pizza with home made Base so you can make a square one to fit the tin.

Breakfast, often pancakes with bananas, raisins, lunch snacks, soup, fresh bread.

Add a few fish and we ate as well as we did at home.

 

[BobnLesley]

"...Bake bread, proper wholemeal bread, done from scratch with yeast and flour etc. Eschew part baked rubbish..."

Breadmaking uses way too much gas and the results are 'patchy' in our (most?) boat oven. Look around for packs of tortilla wraps, they're generally good for 6 -8 weks, though some Spanish supermarket ones had a shelf-life of about 3 months; it may have been more, we bought fifty packs in the Canary Islands in Nov and were still eating them the following April. If you can't find tortillas to buy, then you can make them on board easily & quickly, dry-fried on the stove top; when anchored we reckon that we can make and cook a batch tortillas in less time than it takes to take the dinghy ashore to buy a loaf of bread, just don't make with 100% wholemeal flour though, they turn out a bit chewy.

 

[syneraida]

"...Bake bread, proper wholemeal bread, done from scratch with yeast and flour etc. Eschew part baked rubbish..."

Breadmaking uses way too much gas and the results are 'patchy' in our (most?) boat oven. Look around for packs of tortilla wraps, they're generally good for 6 -8 weks, though some Spanish supermarket ones had a shelf-life of about 3 months; it may have been more, we bought fifty packs in the Canary Islands in Nov and were still eating them the following April. If you can't find tortillas to buy, then you can make them on board easily & quickly, dry-fried on the stove top; when anchored we reckon that we can make and cook a batch tortillas in less time than it takes to take the dinghy ashore to buy a loaf of bread, just don't make with 100% wholemeal flour though, they turn out a bit chewy.

To try and cut down on gas usage we bought a bread maker a year ago and honestly we couldn't be happier. It runs fine off a 1000w inverter. Initially we thought it would use huge amounts of power, but in reality the power consumption is pretty small, remember most of the time the bread is proving, then there's a bit of time needing (which is only a small electric motor), then the last 40 minutes or so is the cooking part where lots of power is consummed, but in reality the element is probably only on for about 15-20 minutes of the 40 minutes baking time. Long story short we make bread without any problems just using the batteries, ideally we try and combine the baking part of the cycle with running the engine and charging the batteries, but we don't have to and as long as the batteries have a good charge when you start they are fine.

 

[jdc]

Breadmaking uses way too much gas...

This is of course dependant on one's perspective, so while not doubting your view, mine differs. So to try and be quantitative we find that when cooking our own meals, including making bread every 2 - 3 days, we use between 200 and 250g of gas per day. Hence a 4.5kg Calor butane will last around 20 days.

Another way to look at it is the energy contained in LPG. Propane is around 50MJ/kg if 100% efficient, and around 46MJ/kg is normal efficiency for an oven. Baking bread takes about 50 mins, and the oven is around 2kW when heating and around half this when at temperature. Let's nonetheless call it 2kW x 50 mins -> 6MJ. 6MJ / 46MJ/kg -> 130 grammes. We make 3 loaves at a time, and make bread about every 3 days.

One might very well also make bread when doing other things with the oven, like roasting meat or making a crumble, so in practice I guess bread-making adds around 50g / day to our usage (ie takes 200g/day consumption up to 250g/day).

As for it being patchy, here I have to admit that I'm none too good either! But my sailing companion is brilliant: she follows to the letter the instructions in the River Cottage book on bread-making (http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6944454-the-river-cottage-bread-handbook), and it's always perfect (unlike me).

 

[laika]

Breadmaking uses way too much gas and the results are 'patchy' in our (most?) boat oven.

This is of course dependant on one's perspective

+1. We've got a pretty big gas locker (in the uk currently loaded with 2 x 6Kg propane) so running out of gas is not a major concern. The occasional *attempt* at bread making, even if totally disastrous as a source of food, is always great for morale on long passages (even if only occasionally). It usually ends up some kind of edible.

To try and cut down on gas usage we bought a bread maker a year ago and honestly we couldn't be happier. It runs fine off a 1000w inverter.

Really not sure I'd want to run the engine to bake bread. How many KWh per loaf?

 

[temptress]

"...Bake bread, proper wholemeal bread, done from scratch with yeast and flour etc. Eschew part baked rubbish..."

YES YES YES

Breadmaking uses way too much gas and the results are 'patchy' in our (most?) boat oven. ........

Disagree- we make bread using a Thermal (google Mr D Thermal Cooker er - other brands are available) it takes about 30 minutes on the burner plus 2 to 3 hours waiting time. On a passage say over 3 days at sea or more we love to have fresh bread. It has taken us a few years to refine the recipes but we now have a range of bread available when crossing oceans. We now call the 4 to 7 am watch the 'Bread Making' watch as that gives us fresh bread for Breakfast.......

 

[syneraida]

Really not sure I'd want to run the engine to bake bread. How many KWh per loaf?

We don't need to run the engine to bake a loaf, but if we need to run the engine to charge the batteries because of general consumption we try and do the bread at the same time.

I measured consumption at about 0.32kWh, ie. about 23Ah on a fully charged (12.8v) bank of batteries. Which with 4x86Ah batteries equates to about 7% of total capacity. Which in turn is about 2 hours of good solar if the sun is out, or if the sun isn't shining and the engine is running to charge batteries already the alternator just has to work a bit harder