Stow Food for Four?

[sushirama]

I heard some where that you can do with out a lot of the necessities in life as long as you have a few of the luxuries.

Pickling on a boat should be easy - if you like half sour koshers. Jar pickling would be to resource intensive for a boat. If you know someone that owns a restaurant you can get them in 5 gallon buckets. And use the bucket to make more when you run out. Theres lots of recipes on the web.

hard tack is easy to make - water, flour, salt, bake at 200 for about 4 hours. wrap them in paper towels and store in a paper bag. My longest batch lasted 5 years. They suck but for survival food itll do. I bet soaked in rum for a while before eating may be doabale - havent tried yet.

If you want to carry the most weight for the money try survivalacres.com or something similar they can ship loadouts for up to 10 years. They have over 1800 items that can be mixed and matched. Everything comes in resealable #10 cans From looking at it the weight per person is 500-700 lbs per year of food which is 150 to 200ish cans depending on the meal plan. If you mix in occasional fresh or caught food this can be extended considerably. Storing 400 #10 cans (basically 400 gallons of food) shouldnt be that hard if you dont mind sleeping with food for a while. When I was on submarines we'd load out with food everywhere including bunks,passageways, showers, escape compartments, everywhere but the reactor room. We'd literally eat our way out of the boat.

[MoonlightShadow]

Well, just done a live exercise. Went to Asda's (UK equivelent of Walmart?) this afternoon, and bought £400/$600 of food. It filled the rear of the Jeep. After unpacking, it filled the fridge, and just two lockers. Total volume about 12 cubic feet. Didn't weigh it but the car didn't feel heavy. This would last 5 of us about two months. However, there were a number of items we didn't buy such as fresh items which we will still get on an almost daily basis, such as milk, bread, etc.

Since we got home, the kids have done a menu for a year, based on adding in all the other stuff we'd need/want, and it budgets out at around $4,500.

And hey, guess what, we'd get about 10 times what we got today onto the boat. 43ft x 13ft8in. Some of what we got was dried food, but there was not a massive choice in a local supermarket. There is loads of canned stuff though, which is heavyish. I reckon that a full years supplies would be something in the order of just over 2 tonnes, which should not be a problem. Gives me an all up weight of about 23 tonne! (That can't be right - we're supposed to be 33,000lbs light ship?). I'll come back on that one!

My conclusion, is that we can indeed provision for a full year on a 43ft boat, without too much trouble.

However, if provisioning for a year, there would be quite a few other items needed. Medical stuff, spares for engine, genset, plumbing, electrics, rigging, damage control gear, and so on.

Might need to spend a bit more on anti-foul, as I think it will all notice at the waterline. Next job, a full loading list.

[Bash]

Originally Posted by MoonlightShadow

Pickles. I am presuming we mean pickled onions here? And what is a pickle pin?

I've searched it on the net, but can only find an advertising thingy.

A pin is a half-firkin cask, holding approximately 6 gallons/20 liters, generally used for pickles. In historical times, a firkin was 1/4 of a barrel. In terms of beer parlance, the term has generally been replaced by "keg," although few know that in terms of measurement a keg is actually 1/2 of a barrel.

In the days of Columbus--who by the way was the first to introduce pickles to the new world--stores were laid aboard ship by pin, firkin, keg or barrel.

[Talbot]

Originally Posted by MoonlightShadow

Went to Asda's (UK equivelent of Walmart?) this afternoon, and bought £400/$600 of food.

I hope you negotiated a good discount for buying that amount at his store rather than someone elses

[feelsgood]

We live aboard our Colvic Watson Motor Sailor 32 full time and leave our home port of Morlaix in Brittany around April and return about the last week in October. With all food taken into concideration we can carry enough for approx 6 months.
We make our own bread and of course fish alot which keeps the cost of cruising down. We have a waco 25lt fridge freezer which can hold about 35 meals for 2 people and is run on our solar panel all lights are LED so our 2 x 140ah batteries are fine. Hope this is helpfull

[MoonlightShadow]

Are you picking me up on my punctuation? Possessive. The store belongs to Asda.

[bobfnbw]

Some of places I have been looking at for a extended food kit. Cost would be higher than buying local due to shipping but still ok. I have found some of these in our local grocery store, but a few like canned butter, and bacon.. no.

Results for Canned Meats, Cheese & Butter

Survival Acres has over 1700+ Emergency Food Items, Dehydrated, Freeze Dried, we are the largest supplier in America.

Just do a google search on survival foods.
Seems like cost per serving on a dried food list comes out to about 3.5 per serving.
Freezed dried is like 7.00. USD.

You really have to look at serving size on these though. For me I need around 2200 Cal/day, and a 1 cup serving that has 270 cal, just won't do it.

I want to order a pack that will give 2200 cal/day, for 4 people for 3 months. I am currently researching this and will order something soon. I don't have time now to menu plan it myself, and will use this as a base to keep on board.
I'll post there what exactly I get when I do.

Some reallly good ideas presented in this thread. Thanks for all that posted.
Some of the things I like are:
Of course a watermaker. To me it is essential. I plan on building our own. Got the plans for it, and currently watching ebay for a CAT pump.

Sprouting. Best way to get fresh food aboard, lots of vitamins.

Yougurt. Plan on making our own.

Canning. Looking into this. Read Beth Lenords piece on her site about it. Looks promising.

Drying. Just bought a book on it and plan on making our own beef and fish jerkey, and drying fruits and veggies.

Bob

[Chief Engineer]

Pickles spam and biscuits..........That's high eatin!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

S/V "Ponty Mython"

[svBeBe]

We can provision for at least 12 months. Last year I provisioned in Panama in March and didn't need to buy anything until after we arrived in New Zealand in November, and then only needed fresh meats and milk and beer as we still had plenty of every other kind of food. Still had plenty of canned meats, chili and such as well as canned veggies and loads of snack foods and staples. That should be our final long-term provisioning as food supplies are plentiful everywhere else we will be cruising during our circumnavigation. I actually gave away meats in Tonga because had to get rid of it before reaching New Zealand.

I vacuum seal almost everything and it lasts unbelievably long time. Found some crackers recently that were sealed in Aug 06 and they were still crisp and fresh tasting, not soft and rancid.

Boat is 16 meters and has extremely large storage capacity. Have 6 totally dry floor lockers that are about 18-inches deep and 4-ft long. Great place to store wine and vac-sealed bread flour for use in the bread maker. Have 2 large freezer lockers which can be set as either freezers or fridges, plus 1 under-counter upright fridge. Do have a high-capacity watermaker. All the comforts of a real home.

Judy
S/V BeBe
Amel SM2 #387

[SabreKai]

I figure on keeping 6months to a years worth of basic staples aboard, being rice n beans. I am also learning about canning, pickling and drying foods so I can put up my own foods. So far I have about 6 months for 2 people and it takes up about 20 cubic foot of space. None of it requires refrigeration. This is on a Roberts Offshore 38, 11.5 foot beam.

Sauerkraut is also very good for scurvy as are fermented pickles. Toward that end I have two crocks about a gallon or gallon and a half each for making up fresh batches. These will be canned when ready.

Storing glass jars on board could be a problem but Im figuring on making up storage tubes from PVC tubing so the jars will rest one on top of the other and have no movement space. Sort of like vertical missile tubes.

The best thing to do is get ahold of some dieticians books and put together a menu, then just expand on it for time period X. I'm diabetic and one thing i've learned is just how little the human body needs. Most people, especially us Northamericans eat way more than we need.

Sabre

[toewsrus]

We have a 43' cat. We've provisioned for 60 days for 5 people on board. The only thing we needed to by was fresh bread, veggies and fruit. We did run out of sugar - the kids use it in their kool Aid.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by SabreKai

... Storing glass jars on board could be a problem but Im figuring on making up storage tubes from PVC tubing so the jars will rest one on top of the other and have no movement space...Sabre

Old socks or tubular expanded plastic sleeves make excellent bottle/jar protectors, as do small towels.
I don’t recall ever breaking a glass container, but do recall several incidences of plastic container rupture.
➥ Industrial Netting - Parts Protection Sleeves

[cosmosmariner]

We provisioned for 2 people aboard a 25' Watkins for 6 months. Mostly dehydrated food, some canned meats and fish, many items off the shelf like mustard, mayo, catchup etc. total of 22 cu. ft for all consumable supplies. We purchased fresh along the way but did not have to if we couldn't find what we wanted. Main source for food was (internet-grocer.com) We made up a Word doc and tracked what we loaded vs what we used. I'll send it if you request by email to debandlou@verizon.net . Our Avitar picture shows our 25' Wu-Hsin in West end Bahamas about 30 days into the trip and about 5 inches lower than design water line.

[Rhosyn Mor]

Rhosyn Mor currently holds about 6 months worh of food, and if necessary I think we could easily hold over a years worth. 38 LOD, 12'4" beam. No refrigeration. DO have a locker full of " exotic" items; smoked paprika, pickled herring, canned red peppers, and many many different kinds of pickled items. Our big issue would be ( is) water. Currently have 1 x 365 litre tank and 1 x 120 litre tank, plus two bladder tanks in a locker.
Here in the USA am having great fun trying out all the various food stuffs before bulk buying, sweetened baked beans are VERY Interesting! ( a tin of Heinz baked beans is over $1 in Annapolis!).
As a side note, Asian supermarkets are a great source, especially when you buy stuff that has no english on the label .
For milk I use NIDO, wunnerful. AIr dried hams a good for a long long time without needing to be refrigerated, available at most supermarkets here.

[cosmosmariner]

'Variety is the spice of life', and spices provide the variety. With a variety of spices you can make canned chicken or pork taste Italian, German, Indian, Mexican etc.

We have a PUR Power Survivor 40E water maker, 4amps, 1.5 gph. mounted on the inboard bulkhead of the quarter berth (aka storage area). Also 40 gal built in water tank under the v berth, 4 jerry cans of water on deck.