Household Items To Bring Aboard

[MaDouleur]

My general plan is to liquidate the entire contents of my house, buy a boat and live aboard. Once established, I would take weekend / week-long cruises and then see where things go as far as more extensive cruising.

As I clean things up and put them up for sale, I'm giving a lot of thought to what I should keep. I think most household items I'll keep will be kitchen items so this post should be in the right place...

Here's what I'm thinking of so far:

• Selection of pots and pans. I'm thinking nothing larger than a medium pan / 1-gallon pot.
• Selection of spatulas, whisks and other stuff that I use most frequently from the junk drawer.
• Selection of tupperware
• Dishes and flatware. While I'm sure a full set of dishes is not practical, I think I ought to have some regular plates, cups and bowls. I think there should be a balance between avoiding the excess garbage from throw-away dishes all the time and the hassle of washing regular dishes in the galley sink. Should regular dishes be plastic to avoid the risk of breakage?
• I have a large Igloo 70-quart cooler that holds ice for up to 5 days in 90-degree heat. Is this something I should bring on board? Is it too big?
• Pressure cooker - I've seen rave reviews about how great it is to have a pressure cooker onboard. Is my current 2-gallon pressure cooker too big for a galley stove?

Non-kitchen stuff:

• Selection of mechanical tools
• Several light blankets (I plan on sticking to warmer climates)
• Several bath towels
• Several beach towels

Anyone have any experience with having an acoustic and/or electric guitar onboard? Any special considerations? My thoughts are to keep it in the case at all times, wipe down thoroughly after every use, plan on more frequent string changes. Perhaps find some silica dessicant packets for the guitar cases to absorb moisture?

I welcome responses. Please remember the jist of this post is to figure out what items I / a typical household ALREADY HAVE that should be kept for use onboard.

Looking forward to joining everyone on the water in a couple of months!

[jackdale]

Some suggestions:

1) Go charter a few boats and see what equipment they have on board.
2) Check out the galley designs to find something suitable.
3) Buy the boat first (after extensive research), then select / buy the household items.
4) A very specific suggestion - check out Magma stackable cookware. It is a great space saver.
6) Make sure you can get more than one pot on the stove.
7) Unbreakable dishes are a most - even Corelle breaks, actually it shatters in to little sharp shards.
8) Avoid glassware - use acrylic, plastic or metal.
) Lots of resealable containers - bugs can get into everything.
9) A good rail mounted BBQ is essential.
10) The pressure cooker is a great idea.
11) Get lots of anti-skid pads for use on surfaces and between plates, etc.

More may come to mind.

Jack

[MaDouleur]

Thanks for the great reply, Jack.

A point of clarification - I will be selling everything and moving out BEFORE buying a boat. I am doing this for cash purposes (everything needs to be sold to raise the cash for a boat) and for flexibility purposes. I plan to travel the Eastern seaboard to find the right boat.

Because of the above, #3 is kinda out...

For #1, I will be doing some local shopping just to get a taste of what's out there...

The rest of your post was basically copied and pasted into my 44-page move document...

Thanks - Jake

[Liberty28]

We used a little teflon wok for cooking almost everything. If you don't use the pressure cooker on land, you probably won't use it on the water. By the by, we had a little magnetic strip attached to the galley wall for the knives.

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by MaDouleur

- I will be selling everything and moving out BEFORE buying a boat. Jake

Hi Jake,

We just did this.
We found some stuff really easy to sell on eBay and to friends but there was a whole lot of stuff that we just gave away or sent to trash/charity.

ALL of our kitchen stuff was given away or trashed. All my tools we left in Sydney for some time that we sail back there.

Anything we sold was at a fraction of the cost of purchase. WE have mostly paid good money for quality goods that were still in the prime of life. It was pretty hard getting rid of them for nothing or just a few dollars.

I know its better to pack lite for the boat, but you will the chucking away thousands of dollars if you sell your goods... Look at the preasure cooker... value $100 but too big? Throw it away ( -$100) and buy a smaller one (-$100) and your total cost is $200 for a preasure cooker! Just keep it and relish its size

All the best


Mark

[waterworldly]

Jake, you are right if you like to cook, take your favorite kitchen tools. There is no reason to scrimp here, as you will find yourself cooking more without the temptation of restaurants and take out. I also think you should have one set of "port dishes" for when you are anchored / docked. It isn't camping, it's your real life! Measure the oven in a few boats and plan accordingly. The stoves can take a nice size pot, even if it's across two burners. The trick is in the sink. Too often they put two pint size sinks and then advertise "double sink" like it's a plus. I prefer to take it out and put in one normal size sink, dividing it with a square washpan is I want to do small dishes, and have the option of a big sink when I need it.

[Holding Pattern]

We have a guitar and a mandolin (there's something so feminine about a mandolin...) onboard and you're spot on.
They don't neede re-strung as much as we thought...we moved from nylon strings to silk-steel and have had no problems with rust, etc.
We have a big collection of the silica-gel packets in everything from cameras to musical in-strow-munts...they may only be tiger charms but if I think they work, then they must...

[Vasco]

Keep everything except the furniture. Sooner or later you'll need it on a boat. On second thought if you have some beanbag chairs keep those too. A lot of folks have guitars aboard, both electrical and acoustical. One guy I know has a whole amplifier system, takes it to the beach and runs it off a Honda generator whenever there's a few musicians around. Put it all in storage until you get the boat. If you have to buy all this stuff new it'll soon add up.

[Harriet]

I never used a pressure cooker ashore, but it's been essential on the boat. BTW, a 2 gallon cooker is only 8 quarts, and most pressure cookers are 6, so yours is not exceptionally large. Keep it. If you are on a monohull, you might want to stick with melamine dishes. We use Corelle on our catamaran, and we've been very pleased with the "real" feel of them, but we don't heel. As waterwordly said, this is not camping. Try to find pots and pans with small handles, as big ones are hard to store. Keep some of your favorite utensils and small appliances (i.e., a mini chopper, etc.); once you find the right boat, you can still sell off those things that won't fit or require too much power. But it would be a shame to get rid of things that, on the right boat, would enhance the experience. For example, I grind fresh coffee beans every morning, and I wouldn't be without my coffee grinder.
Another must is a tea kettle, especially one where the top cannot come off (it fills from the spout). And one or two thermos bottles or a pump thermos are keepers.
Spray bottles are good to have. And definitely buy a set of Tupperware salt and pepper shakers - they are the only ones we've found that keep away the clumps.
Now get out there and buy a boat!

[ksmith]

Rule of Thumb: If you have not used it in 90 days why not
If you have not used it in 180 throw it out

[stevensc]

Remember, the pressure cooker can also be used (non pressurised) to boil shrimp, make a stew, soup, fry fish, bail the boat, etc
Steve

[Vasco]

Originally Posted by ksmith

Rule of Thumb: If you have not used it in 90 days why not
If you have not used it in 180 throw it out

The minute you throw it out you'll need it.

[MaDouleur]

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. I'm using a combination of eBay and Craig's list to sell my stuff. MArk talked about selling at a fraction of purchase price. He's right. The good news is that a lot of my stuff is high quality stuff that was purchased when I had a 'career' and some decent $$$ coming in. Because of this, I am still getting some fair dollars for things.

I have found Craig's list to be the best for run-of-the-mill items because of the local nature. On Craig's List, I may be the only guy in my area with the certain-size widescreen tv for sale but on eBay, I'll be one of a thousand... On the other hand, eBay is working best for rare unique items that fetch the best price when presented to a much larger audience.

[oldsalt_1942]

When underway I used to cook with my pressure cooker most of the time. Didn't use it pressurized, but with the lid locked it saved a LOT of cleanup time when it got dumped on the cabin sole from an unexpected wave.

[gonesail]

if you are south of mason dixon line then you will want an AC to deal with the humidity .. otherwise a good heater. plenty of 12v fans are nice along with a good mattress for sleeping. a bimini and dodger combination will be valuable to keep cockpit dry.