Provisioning for offshore cruising, EPIRB disposal—World Cruising news

by David Schmidt, Sail-World Cruising Editor on 11 Feb 2015 Growing up cruising on the East Coast of the United States, I was always amazed at how smooth and seamless my parents could make the cruising life appear: There was always plenty of great onboard eats, navigation and all routing had been carefully researched prior to leaving the mooring, and the boat was always in great working condition. To the mind of a ten-year-old boy, what could be complicated about cruising? You just show up and go sailing, right?

Many thousands of sea miles later, I have fully learned about the 'behind-the-veil' magic that my parents were conjuring in order to make cruising seem like nothing but fun to my little brother and myself (seasickness eventually showed me another face, but that’s a different story).

As I got older and the veil got progressively thinner, however, I realized that I was unbelievably lucky to have a Dad who showed me how to safely negotiate nasty weather, tricky navigation, challenging crew combinations and an assortment of other onboard could-be calamities, while my Mom’s careful provisions planning certainly rang home after a few other 'cruises'-on other friends’ boats-where the importance of victuals was downplayed in favor of the spirit of adventure (read: the importance of being young).

For anyone who is new to offshore cruising and the kind of provisioning that keeps hungry sailors smiling hundreds of miles from shore, cruisers Karen and Jeffrey Siegel, from Castine, Maine (USA) and the yacht 'aCappella', have offered up some great suggestions for keeping the crew happy while ensuring the freshest food.

'It probably will not surprise you that we use an app to assist us,' wrote the Siegels, in their report entitled 'Provisioning the aCappella Way', which can be found inside this issue. 'In fact, we have used different ones over the years and are now quite happy with Paprika which runs across our iPhones, iPads, and Macs. We've entered hundreds of recipes into the app and can then simply select our meals and it will create a grocery list.'

The next step, write the Siegels, is to take the recipe database and create accurate shopping lists. 'For our upcoming Bahamas trip we used Paprika to develop a typical set of meals for 4-5 weeks - we called it a prototype,' advised the Siegels. 'Those meals were entered into the app to create a large grocery list for those weeks. Based on the length of stay, we multiply quantities from the prototype to get a good basic food provisioning list. We'll pick up a bit more when we make our final perishable shopping trip in Miami Beach.'

More, inside.

And while no one likes to think of onboard emergencies, history has repeatedly demonstrated that a properly registered EPIRB is one of the smartest pieces of equipment that any bluewater sailor can purchase. The trouble, however, becomes one of properly disposing with old EPIRBs, lest the local coast guard post finds itself urgently called to a garbage dump to investigate an emergency signal-a pointless exercise that wastes time, money and resources, and distracts personal.

'When a beacon is activated, AMSA [Australian Maritime Safety Authority] is alerted and a search and rescue response may be initiated,' said Lisa Martin, the AMSA’s spokesperson. 'Search assets and personnel tasked to look for beacons which are inadvertently activated may then be unavailable for a real emergency.'

Inside, find out the AMSA’s recommended best practices for dealing with old, unwanted EPIRBs, and contact your national rescuing authority for any special instructions that they may have for safe disposal.

Also inside, learn about the latest changes that we’ve made to the website that allow you to customize your web-viewing experience, learn about the (bipartisan) Renewable Fuel Standard Reform Act that was recently introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives.

May the four winds blow you safely home,