Amount of food?

[imagine2frolic]

Little Otter,

This is not a knock. I admire your fortitude, but I really think you lack experience. That doesn't mean you can't make it. It just means it will be a whole lot tougher. The great thing about youth is the feeling of being invincible. As always time will tell....BEST WISHES...

[Tahiti Rover]

Fellow sailors:

There's really no reason not have fresh veggies, meats (not tinned), and dairy (eggs, cheese and milk) on board without refrigeration. It's been done for decades, and somehow the information on how to do it just gets lost every ten years or so.

To begin with, there really is no reason to require perishables for longer than 30 days. Break out your charts and you will see that there really are no legs of a circumnavigation that will have you out of touch with land (and supplies) for more than 30 days unless you have a really slow boat, or encounter really awful contrary weather. The passage from the Panama Canal to Fatu Hiva, Marquesas, French Polynesia, for instance, is one of the longest, and sometimes takes a small monohull 5 weeks.

Of course, the prudent sailor always plans for the unexpected, so stocking up to cover a month and a half is recommended.

About the only reason to stock some items for a greater period of time is if you know beforehand that some of your favorite foods are either not available at your destination, or are uncommonly expensive. Stocking for only 45 days really simplifies your provisioning. After your dry stores like flour, yeast, baking powder, rice, beans, pasta, coffee, tea, powdered drink mixes, dry sausage and salami, salt/pepper and spices, you move on to cooking oil, vinegar and sauces like soy and maybe a Thai fish sauce.

If you're pressure cooker savvy, and most Americans, unlike almost all British, Europeans, Aussies and New Zealanders, are not, you will process beef, pork, dark and white meat chicken, and maybe lamb, thus have a wide range of chemical-free meats to accompany your meals. You can also process your own favorite meat sauces, salsas, chutneys, etc. for really quick and simple meal preparation at sea. You may process veggies in the pressure cooker, to, but I prefer to use the old country style of holding fresh, raw vegetables in a diluted vinegar and water mixture so I have a choice as to whether to use the veggies raw in a salad or cook them as an ingredient in a recipe. A variety of cheeses may be kept for months without refrigeration simply be putting in sterilized jars and covered with extra virgin olive oil. Eggs do not have to be lightly boiled, or smeared with Vaseline or oil. Just store them away from heat and turn then every day, or at least every other day. For details on all of these techniques and much more, get a copy of "Gourmet Underway - A Sailor's Cookbook." See the book's website, www.gourmetunderway.com.

I totally agree with the other contributors who are stressing "Learn How to Cook." Most people, not just Americans, are poor cooks because they have received no formal training, and have little practice. To that advice I would also add: "Learn How to Fish." Sailboat voyagers of my acquaintance (I lived at the Panama Canal for 14 years and met quite a few) are notoriously poor fishermen. That is a real shame when you consider the abundance of food just for the catching. I recommend to everyone to acquire a copy of "The Cruiser's Handbook of Fishing," by Scott & Wendy Bannerot. It's 400+ pages of everything you need to know about catching fish from your boat and your dinghy.

I believe the galley deserves as much attention as the choice of sails and ground tackle. Jack Hanna, designer of perhaps the most famous cruising sailboat of all time, the Tahiti Ketch, once said, "the only detail that really matters in a sailboat is a full, man-sized, actual, practicable working of a galley, for indigestion has wrecked more cruises than rocks and hurricanes.

Bon appetit,

Robbie

[ssullivan]

Great post! If I wasn't time constrained when posting, I would have followed the same path writing mine. All good information. Excellent!

Originally Posted by Tahiti Rover

Fellow sailors:

There's really no reason not have fresh veggies, meats (not tinned), and dairy (eggs, cheese and milk) on board without refrigeration. It's been done for decades, and somehow the information on how to do it just gets lost every ten years or so.

To begin with, there really is no reason to require perishables for longer than 30 days. Break out your charts and you will see that there really are no legs of a circumnavigation that will have you out of touch with land (and supplies) for more than 30 days unless you have a really slow boat, or encounter really awful contrary weather. The passage from the Panama Canal to Fatu Hiva, Marquesas, French Polynesia, for instance, is one of the longest, and sometimes takes a small monohull 5 weeks.

Of course, the prudent sailor always plans for the unexpected, so stocking up to cover a month and a half is recommended.

About the only reason to stock some items for a greater period of time is if you know beforehand that some of your favorite foods are either not available at your destination, or are uncommonly expensive. Stocking for only 45 days really simplifies your provisioning. After your dry stores like flour, yeast, baking powder, rice, beans, pasta, coffee, tea, powdered drink mixes, dry sausage and salami, salt/pepper and spices, you move on to cooking oil, vinegar and sauces like soy and maybe a Thai fish sauce.

If you're pressure cooker savvy, and most Americans, unlike almost all British, Europeans, Aussies and New Zealanders, are not, you will process beef, pork, dark and white meat chicken, and maybe lamb, thus have a wide range of chemical-free meats to accompany your meals. You can also process your own favorite meat sauces, salsas, chutneys, etc. for really quick and simple meal preparation at sea. You may process veggies in the pressure cooker, to, but I prefer to use the old country style of holding fresh, raw vegetables in a diluted vinegar and water mixture so I have a choice as to whether to use the veggies raw in a salad or cook them as an ingredient in a recipe. A variety of cheeses may be kept for months without refrigeration simply be putting in sterilized jars and covered with extra virgin olive oil. Eggs do not have to be lightly boiled, or smeared with Vaseline or oil. Just store them away from heat and turn then every day, or at least every other day. For details on all of these techniques and much more, get a copy of "Gourmet Underway - A Sailor's Cookbook." See the book's website, www.gourmetunderway.com.

I totally agree with the other contributors who are stressing "Learn How to Cook." Most people, not just Americans, are poor cooks because they have received no formal training, and have little practice. To that advice I would also add: "Learn How to Fish." Sailboat voyagers of my acquaintance (I lived at the Panama Canal for 14 years and met quite a few) are notoriously poor fishermen. That is a real shame when you consider the abundance of food just for the catching. I recommend to everyone to acquire a copy of "The Cruiser's Handbook of Fishing," by Scott & Wendy Bannerot. It's 400+ pages of everything you need to know about catching fish from your boat and your dinghy.

I believe the galley deserves as much attention as the choice of sails and ground tackle. Jack Hanna, designer of perhaps the most famous cruising sailboat of all time, the Tahiti Ketch, once said, "the only detail that really matters in a sailboat is a full, man-sized, actual, practicable working of a galley, for indigestion has wrecked more cruises than rocks and hurricanes.

Bon appetit,

Robbie

[Little Otter]

Originally Posted by waterworldly

You mention your ROTC unit. If you are in one, the age thing has already been broken by someone already younger.

I resaerched every search engine I could acces and found nothing on someone younger than 18 using a multihull for a circumnavigation I also looked at every record site avalible and still found nothing.

[hellosailor]

"I'm not trying to break a speed record just an age record "
IIRC Guinness keeps the records based on how old you are when you complete the trip, not how young you are when you start. So if you want the record for "under 18" you need to start with your 18th birthday, subtract the time it will take to sail, and get started before a certain launch date. Given the considerations of weather and seasons, that means yes, you WILL need to break a speed record, and yes, you are ALREADY RUNNING OUT OF TIME. And that can be a problem, moving in haste means cutting corners and that can be deadly at sea.

Whether that is critical yet, depends on how far along you are in your planning and logistics.

One option to look into might be asking "the scouts" at some level to support your trip, adding a tracker like SPOT to your vessel, and turning it into some type of project that the scouts can participate in as you travel. Circumnavigator's Badge, anyone? [g]

The problem is, planning can easily eat a year. Then you've got to mesh that against your course, and the best time of year to make your runs. Have you got a preliminary schedule figured out yet? A departure date?

[Rhosyn Mor]

Waht you will probably find is that what you need to stock up on in the west is junk food- vital for treats, snacks etc All over the worl people are eating, in the majority of the workd, if not all of it, rice and beans are available. FLour is also widely available outside of the first world, but you may have to sift it. Get a lot of the latching airtight plastic food containers, in a number of sizes, you will find that the bigger ones can hold 10 pounds weight of food, and then you transfer to small containers as you use them. Learn to can and vacu-pack, helps keep food a lot longer, insect free,and you can vacu pack spare engine parts while you're at it,- helps prevent corrosion and rust. Try NIDO- a powdered whole milk that is widely available in Latin America and the Carribean- and available in both the USA and the UK- it is wonderful, mixed with cold water it tastes just like milk. Take wine with you, its hard to find in many places and if you do not drink it you can cook with it. Sugar will also be hard to find occaisionally, but some form of sweetner is available just about anywhere. If you learn to eat the produce the locals eat where ever you are food budget will plummet.
hope this helps

[nautical62]

This may help you with volume and proportions:

I have no experience passagemaking, but do have a great deal of experience outfitting trips with no refridgeration.

I run an outdoor recreation program and used to work as an outfitter, so always had to figure out volumes of food per person per time under conditions where refridgeration and resupply were not options. There are many ways to go about this, but what has been simple and effective is to throw it on a scale and weight it. Assuming heavy and bulky packaging has been removed, I find that about 2 to 2.25 lbs of food per person per day is about right. This assumes no drinks and maybe 15% fresh or canned goods. I've gotten down to about 1.75 lbs when taking care to remove most water and canned goods. Every trip I've outfitted with over 2.5 lbs has come back with food.

Obviously, the size of the people, activity levels and amount of canned goods can change this a bit, but I've found it a good benchmark for moderate activity, fair weather trips (As I image Paul can verify, Mountaineers can consume over 5,000 Calories a cay and still loose weight.)

My first boat had no refridgeration and I typically carried the better part of 2 months of food on board. (Though I did get fresh veggies from time to time) Here's some non-staple items that keep well unrefridgerated: hard light yellow cheese. Don't ever touch what you don't eat with your hands. Hard, all beef summer sausage, Eggs, coated or turned, Squeeze bottle Jelly, Vinagerette salad dressing, I've also gotten a lot of mileage out of a food dehydrator. Dried, fresh veggies are a fraction of the weight of fresh or canned veggies. Get a bushel of apples from an orchard for next to nothing and dry them. Sundried tomatoes, beef jerky and fruit roll ups are a few other uses. I often make spaghetti sauce for example, with one can of tomato paste, dried sauce mix, fresh or reconstituted dried onion as well as reconstituted: dried mushroom, green and red peppers and garlic. Maybe adding some beef sausage if I don't have refridgerated meat.

[Chief Engineer]

Freeze dried food is ok as an emergency ration.

When I hiked long stretches of the Appalachia and Pacific Crest Trails

you can put together meals from grocery store shelves......you just have to get rid of all the packaging and cardboard.

My metabolism may be different but let me just say that after 3 or 4 days of freeze dried......well I don't know how to put it delicately......suffice it to say....taffy?

[Little Otter]

thanks yall for all of this unfortunately it looks like I wont get to do it because of the current state of the economy and such but my dad promised me that if i get full scholarships then he will pay for half of a boat when i graduate college. this was really good info though and I hope that it was able to be of more use to someone else.

[Ex-Calif]

Originally Posted by Little Otter

my dad promised me that if i get full scholarships then he will pay for half of a boat when i graduate college.

Everyone takes a different path. Your dad sounds wise. A good education will never let you down.

Just hang on to the sailing dream and it will happen.

Maybe a college with a good sailing program...

[Little Otter]

thanks and I'll look to see if any good colleges have sailing programs.

[RickD]

Originally Posted by rexposeidon

Check out the survivalist websites for other suggestions of "alternative" cuisine.

I would suggest (as one of those survivalist types) that sometimes what the survivalist sites recommend isn't always the best, nor is it going to be cheap.

When I teach classes on the subject, I teach them toward people remaining in one place though, so I'm probably not going to be a lot of help there. However, I'll suggest the same things others have said... learn cooking and buy bulk items to make various things.

I teach folks to stock up on foods that they normally eat, but with a caveat - do so with things that last a long time (rice, beans, oil things like that) and use those items. (My teaching is along the lines of keeping quantities of food around for larger groups like large families for up to 3-4 months at a time, rather than 1-2 weeks like FEMA teaches)

I bring this all up because the survival sites generally recommend "survival foods" which are similar to things like MREs. While there is nothing wrong with MREs per se, you're not going to want to eat them every day for several months or years (in a circumnavigation). I like them myself, but three weeks daily is my absolute limit, and I'll be eating BUGS before I go much longer than that on MREs. (That's personal and real live experience with it.)

[rebel heart]

Hardtack, rum, and limes. Get some fish every now and again, and you're all set.

[svHyLyte]

Estimate how long you will be at sea. Add 50%. Keep track of what you eat for the same time period ashore. Obtain and pack stores accordingly. Humans all over the world have the same taste buds and eat basically the same types of things/foods. Amazingly you'll be able to find palatable food virtually everywhere you go so long as there are humans or at least simians living there and in some places where they do not. Moreover, it will generally be cheaper and more tasty than the stuff you find in the US.

Literally hundreds of books have been written on these and other subjects pertaining to cruising since 1950. They are at a place called a "Library". It's a place where you can borrow books at no cost. Look up Eric and Susan Hiscock in something called a "Card Catalog". The "Librian"--the person that runs the place--will explain what a card catalog is and how it works. Do your research there. It costs nothing and doesn't waste bandwidth.

[Little Otter]

Thanks guys (BTW rebel heart i agree completly. =)=)=) )