capnsensible
Well-Known Member
So where?
Long term provisioning
- Thread starter Cerebus
- Start date
lustyd
Well-Known Member
Everywhere. Speak to any sailor and ask if they’ve ever overprovisioned.
Then here’s the important bit…
Listen to their answer.
capnsensible
Well-Known Member
You can't answer, can you. I'm beginning to think you haven't met anyone provisioning for a trans Atlantic trip.
lustyd
Well-Known Member
I did answer. It seems you can’t listen. Yes, met loads, not that Atlantic crossings are at all special in that regard.
capnsensible
Well-Known Member
Where?
lustyd
Well-Known Member
Where did I meet them? All over the place. Believe it or not sailors are everywhere.
ylop
Well-Known Member
I’m sure that people do spend a lot of time thinking about, maybe even worrying about victualing for long passages. It would seem foolhardy not to work out what to take, how you’ll cook it underway and what happens if you get delayed, something goes off/gets ruined etc. The idea that the “best advice” is that you can survive for three weeks without food so won’t actually die - seems bizarre. I’d consider a trip of 24 hours without food to be unnecessary suffering and anyone else on board would surely be regretting joining the irritable hangry b@st@rd. Whilst your body can survive weeks without food it does so by making you feel pretty shitty after less than 72 hrs, so an “it won’t kill you” message seems flawed on many levels; but the solution to that is arrithmetic not panic buying. I’ve not idea if that’s what transatlantic sailors do, but if they can’t do rational arithmetic to work out a sensible amount of food to take - perhaps they aren’t ready for such a big passage?
Roberto
Well-Known Member
A couple of examples about how skippers can have different approaches, all from Las Palmas pontoons (I just chatted and sort of tried mentoring newbies young people who went boat-to-boat to ask for crewing in ARC boats and got these replies)
1. We take no water, we have a watermaker no need for unnecessary weight
2. We'll have a couple of 6 1.5l water bottle packs just in case, we have wine (guess the nationality)
3. Little need for provisioning, we will fish
Each to his own, up to anyone to take into any consideration what other people do.
[194497]
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If nothing else this thread has given a powerful demonstration of the benefits of singlehanded sailing - imagine leaving the Canaries headed west, only to discover that your crew mates have got the capacity demonstrated above for degrading an interesting discussion into pointless, petty, ill-mannered bickering.
capnsensible
Well-Known Member
On an East West passage some years ago and about a week away from the Windies, a yacht called us on vhf. Their watermaker had broken a d they didn't have any water. We closed with them and gave them some bottled water. French boat, 3 onboard.
geem
Well-Known Member
We have a high output watermaker but always consider that it may stop working. We always keep an emergency ration of drinking water and we ensure the tank supply doesn't drop below what we need to comfortably finish the trip. At 800 litres, the tank is large enough do the trip without the watermaker, with just the two of us onboard, but showering each day uses a little more.
lustyd
Well-Known Member
It wasn’t advice, obviously. It was a simple statement to take away the worry, and it works well. It’s used in ARC lectures too. The simple statement helps people get over the worry and understand that enough food is enough food and to stop overthinking.
It’s psychology, not advice and although some may not understand it, it’s very effective for a large number of people.
ylop
Well-Known Member
Well I realized that but you called it the very best advice in post 18!
obviously it provided you whatever reassurance you needed - im not sure it would reassure me, I was never worried about starving… but I would be concerned about having a miserable time.
Sea Change
Well-Known Member
Our previous boat had a 370l tank. We filed it in the Canaries and when we arrived in the Caribbean a month later it was still nearly half full. That's with two adults and a child onboard.
We didn't take many showers and we did the washing up in salt water.
I tell this to boats we meet who consume 300l a day. I'm not sure they believe me.
(We also had 100l of backup water in Jerry cans and 5l bottles. Don't put all your eggs in one basket)
geem
Well-Known Member
When you have a large tank and a high output watermaker, you can live more like you would live at home. We are still careful with water. When we shower, we fill the kettle with the first bit of cold water that comes through, until it runs warm. It's actually almost a kettle full.
The first bit of water that comes out of the watermaker that isn't drinkable, we use to rinse the cockpit floor.
We don't need to wash in salt water. Having a shower before you go off watch in the evening is lovely and keeps the sheets clean and salt free.
On passage we use far less water than at anchor.
Sea Change
Well-Known Member
On the current boat we have double the water tankage and we don't consciously ration fresh water. If you want a shower, you have one. But old habits die hard and we still get several weeks between fill ups. I no longer do the dishes in salt water, I decided life was a bit too short for that. But I still give everything a quick clean under the saltwater tap before I do them properly.
I'm not a big fan of trying to recreate a full land-life experience on a boat. We know people who do, and whilst they live in comfort it just seems very expensive and unnecessary. Servicing your generator every month because of the hours that you put on it, so that you can run air conditioning, produce enough water for a family to have ten minute long hot showers twice daily, etc.
Then again some people think we live in the lap of luxury because we don't have to turn our fridge off at night. Everybody has a different happy place on the comfort/simplicity spectrum.
geem
Well-Known Member
We make all our water from solar. The generator has been redundant since we upgraded the solar. It's there as a backup up but currently, it has no use. We aren't trying to recreate land life experience. We sail to escape that. No washing machine or dishwasher, although I do miss the dishwasher
Before we upgraded to lithium and better solar, we would do 100 generator hours per year. That was the service interval on thr generator so it worked pretty well to give it an annual service.
I would never install A/C on a boat. If we need a cool night's sleep, we have a mattress cooler that uses 8W of power. When temperatures are over 30degC, it's a game changer. Life's little luxuries
Sea Change
Well-Known Member
Yes I'm not referring to you... it's the big families on 60ft cats, who have several Kw of solar yet still run their generator for hours every day.We make all our water from solar. The generator has been redundant since we upgraded the solar. It's there as a backup up but currently, it has no use. We aren't trying to recreate land life experience. We sail to escape that. No washing machine or dishwasher, although I do miss the dishwasher
Before we upgraded to lithium and better solar, we would do 100 generator hours per year. That was the service interval on thr generator so it worked pretty well to give it an annual service.
I would never install A/C on a boat. If we need a cool night's sleep, we have a mattress cooler that uses 8W of power. When temperatures are over 30degC, it's a game changer. Life's little luxuries
I kind of miss the dishwasher too. Tempted to get a little tabletop one to do all the fiddle small stuff like cutlery. But it's a big drain on both power and water. Friends recently fitted one to their cat, but they also just upgraded from their 'puny' 160l/hr watermaker to a 300l/hr one. I honestly don't know where all the water goes. Our watermaker, when it worked, was 30l/hr. We ran it at most for an hour every other day. Couldn't stand the noise of the damn thing.
geem
Well-Known Member
Our watermaker makes 240L/hr. It's in the acoustic insulated engine room. 50mm od mineral wool insulation behind aluminium perforated plate.
We can hear it, but it's not really that noisy. Like a low hum/rumble. The pump and motor are rubber mounted, which helps as well. We run ours for 15/20mins every day whilst we have breakfast. If we are kiting or winging, we will rinse the salt off everything. This uses a lot more water so on those days we run for 30 mins. It's just a daily routine. Daily running means no flushing with fresh water either
geem
Well-Known Member
I can't stand the guys that run a generator all night to keep the AC on. Everybody else has hatches open to let the breeze in and they run fans below. Anybody down wind of the generator guy, breathes fumes all night. Totally thoughtless and self centred. We have upped anchor and moved on occasions and let them know our feelings.