Talking about food - eating on board

How we have stored and eaten on board

Mark O 10/08/2026

8/10/20266 min read

Let’s talk about food on board. Our culinary correspondent has returned to sort his grapes out so it falls to another to complete his work. Planning to feed up to five crew for the 4 months of the voyage was a fun exercise and of course required a Costco membership and a lot of shopping trollies in UK and France.

Firstly it is worth saying that we have had two cooking items on board that have been essential. The first is a large Prestige Pressure Cooker big enough to cook for 5. This reduces cooking times for soups and stews, especially if you are using dried beans and pulses as the base or some of the tougher but better flavoured cuts of meat which we came across like lamb off-cuts or or Osso Bucco.

The second is a small one-ring induction hob we bought in France before departure. It only uses about 8 amps off our inverter or when the generator is running or on shore power. We try to coincide cooking on the induction hob with a generator run for battery charging and running the desalinator. The pressure cooker and the induction hob go well together. Cooking on gas in cold climates can lead to quite a lot of condensation and this way we also conserve our gas. The microwave has also been very useful for cooking fresh vegetables.

An observation on gas. In most European sailing butane is the commonly used gas. However at low temperatures (10 degrees Celsius and below) it ceases to vapourise properly and will perform poorly if at all for cooking. Switching to propane is then necessary which performs much better across the full temperature range and is the gas you find in most of Iceland, Greenland and North America. We carried both a large butane bottle and a large propane bottle in our gas locker. However it meant we needed to switch our gas regulator from a purely low pressure butane one for one that could handle both types of gas. There is also the challenge that once you get to Greenland and North America they will not refill European type gas canisters. You will have to buy North American propane canisters and new pigtails (the pipe that connects the canister to the regulator). So you will have to find a way of stowing or disposing of your european canisters.

On this trip we have rarely been more than 4 days between settlements with stores so we generally try to stock up with fresh rations for about 4 days where that is possible. The east coast of Greenland was an exception to this. Usually we look for bread, fresh fruit and vegetables - often cabbage, leeks, onions, potatoes, carrots, broccoli, bananas and apples and whatever else is on the store shelf. Potatoes and onions keep well and will last us a week or more. Most of the other veg from the more remote stores was already quite ‘tired’ and did not keep well except for cabbage. Yoghurt, butter and eggs keep well in our cool hull spaces - lasting several weeks at a time. We buy fresh milk where possible but also carry a good supply of UHT milk which lasts for ages and can also be used to make yoghurt if required.

For meat we buy fresh where possible - sausages, bacon, lamb, pork, beef, mince and chicken were normal topped up with any fish we were able to catch (cod and mackerel). Add to this tinned and jar pates, and cured meats (diced chorizo is very useful to add into soups and stews). We also carry a good stock of long-date tinned confit duck (excellent for cassoulet and stews), corned beef, Fray Bentos pies and those excellent french soups in jars.

As our culinary correspondent has also written we had a very good stock of cheese and cured meats purchased in St Vaast. Our Beaufort and Comte cheeses are still going well even if they are much diminished. He also provided a huge supply of Gymkhana Curry sauces and home-made chutney.

As part of general planning and preparation we put together 5 weeks worth of a 7-day menu pack of dried provisions in case we got iced in or weather required us to stay holed up somewhere (follow this link to see our 7-day menu plan). This we purchased mainly at Costco in UK and in SuperU in France depending on the food import regulations to EU. So for example in Costco we bought tea (1100 Yorkshire Tea bags!), coffee bags, large packs of herbs and spices, granola, cereal bars, hot chocolate sachets, cartons of tomato pulp, oats, rice, pasta and couscous . In SuperU lots of tinned fish and tinned vegetables, instant coffee, real coffee, jams, instant soups and sauces, wraps (really useful as they last for ages and are very versatile), olive oil, UHT milk, butter. We also bought a lot of dried fruit, mixed nuts and mixed seeds from Grapetree in the UK. Beans and pulses were bought in bulk online through Amazon and various specialist retailers as well as mixed dried vegetables, dried bell peppers, dried onion flakes and dried ginger and garlic flakes (excellent for stews, soups, tagines done in pressure cooker). We stocked up on tinned fruit in Ireland as the French seem not to stock much of it - tinned peach slices and mandarin segments bring back memories of childhood and are as good as ever I remember.

We also prepared for baking on board by purchasing Wrights instant bread and cake mixes although in the end we have used fewer of these as we have been able to buy bread ashore and we have wanted to conserve gas. Charles O’s splendid home-made fruit cakes were laid in to stores before we left and have lasted us well.

A normal day at sea might see breakfast options of full english, egg and/or bacon sandwiches, porridge, yoghurt and granola or muesli (these last two with either fresh fruit, dried fruit or tinned fruit) with tea and coffee. Elevenses might be coffee or hot chocolate with a cereal bar. Lunch would be very dependent on sea state and temperature - but might be a substantial soup (split pea and ham or perhaps a bean tagine soup), tuna pasta, kedgeree, cup’a’soup, sandwiches (normal or toasted). Alternatively in calm weather we might sit down to variations on a theme of a cold selection of ham, cheese, pate, pickled herring in dill mayonnaise sauce (Skipper Sild -absolutely delicious and common on the shelves in Faroes, Iceland and Greenland), any suitable leftovers and whatever else that we could rustle up. Mid-afternoon was normally tea and a slice of fruit cake. Evening meals are the main crew meal and might be curry, rice and Naan breads (made from a Wrights Bread Mix,) tagine and couscous, stews, pasta dishes. At anchor or alongside it is often the standard meat and three veg with whatever meat we were using fried in the frying pan and veg in the microwave. We made some memorable burgers, curries - especially a Goan Fish curry of cod, mackerel and frozen shrimp purchased at the local store - Osso Bucco and just good old sausages or chops, spuds and veg.

I think you could say that we have eaten well.