Groceries: How do you get them to the boat?

[DMF Sailing]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

We do a lot of freezing as well, mostly product that don’t can well. The pictures show a creamy curry sauce, but guacamole is even more successful. For this we use a chamber vacuum which allows powdery as well as liquid contents. The size bag is standardized and when flattened and frozen, they fit in the freezers like index cards.

For shortage of lids, we switched to reusable Tattler lids

For a lark, I checked out the layout of your boat to see the storage you have available for the cornucopia you have described in your posts. That's a nicely-designed vessel. Love the high roach main and mizzen. I bet she's fast as heck. Faster, probably, since you eat so well.

[flightlead404]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

The amount of wine and beer for 6-9 months provisioning is staggering. Here we’re making sure our prototype storage crates fit contents as planned. Happy to see that 4 extra cans fit.

If only beer cans were square you could pack 20% more in.

[Auspicious]

I'm probably going to repeat myself some here but I'm not alone in that.

We have a heterogeneous approach to provisioning. Shelf stable is great. For us that's mostly commercially canned goods (from tomato to artichoke), a good bit of homemade home canned foods (sauces, soups, chutneys, chili), dry foods (pasta, home dehydrated herbs and fruit). Then there are room temperature items that last a long time without rising to the level of shelf stable like condiments and eggs. We freeze what makes sense to us. That's a good bit of protein and a lot of veg. Bread, including homemade (we do a lot of cooking in bulk). Produce gets purchased with an eye to life (and fridge space). That means meal planning uses up avocados in the first few days, leaf lettuce next, Romaine, then cabbage. Roots (carrots, onion, potato, rutabaga, turnips, sweet potato, ginger) last a long time properly stored.

We could last nine or ten months on what we have (kitchen fridge and chest freezer at home, big fridge and two freezers on the boat). Life is better with periodic access to produce.

The real challenge today with shopping for months is supply chain issues. Accordingly we top up everything when the opportunity presents itself.

Never miss an opportunity to eat, sleep, go to the bathroom, top up fuel and water and provisions, or charge something. Add software and chart updates to that.

[Merriweather]

Originally Posted by longjonsilver

i am curious as to how others get groceries to the boat. When cruising, there are times when markets are not close to the dock or the beach. How do you get them to the boat in absence of a friendly stranger with a car?

i have tried a modified golf cart, but find that when the load is too heavy or too close to the bottom, the cart is difficult to handle and i worry that rough roads or too much weight will damage the cart.

Then i started using a jogging stroller with pneumatic tires. This seems to work well.

What do y'all use?

My partner and I carry backpacks or ditty bags. We can carry quite a few groceries for 3 miles and it has worked out pretty well. We toy with the idea of getting a foldable cart, but as all boaters know, space is always an issue.

[Simi 60]

Originally Posted by Merriweather

My partner and I carry backpacks or ditty bags. We can carry quite a few groceries for 3 miles and it has worked out pretty well. We toy with the idea of getting a foldable cart, but as all boaters know, space is always an issue.

If space is always an issue you need a bigger boat

[Kd9truck]

I have large 6 ikea bags, it amazing how much you can stuff in them. We have never used all 6. The bags are also used for dirty laundry and bedding, and garbage removal after passage.
We freeze a lot of food before hand, cooked, prepped and raw.
And an extensive array of canned choices and dry stores.