Ships biscuits and weevils no longer on the menu

by Bob Tanner, ORCV on 4 Aug 2005 The Ocean Racing Club of Victoria (ORCV) is holding an information evening on Wednesday 17th August on Provisioning for Long Distance Voyages as part of the lead up to the 2006 Melbourne to Vanuatu Ocean Yacht Race.

Two hundred years ago, sailors had a variety of techniques to deal with preserving food on long distance voyages. A typical seaman’s diet in the Royal Navy of the early 1800’s was salt-preserved beef, dried peas, oatmeal and the ubiquitous ship’s biscuit, supplemented with a gallon of beer a day!

Often, this preserved food was spoiled and barely edible and sailors developed the practice of tapping their ship’s biscuit on their plate to dislodge the weevils.

In today’s life, we take for granted refrigeration and ready access to fresh food all-year-round, so it is difficult to understand the problems facing modern-day sailors when they begin provisioning for a long distance ocean yacht race.

‘Refrigeration means power and power means fuel and that means weight. Weight is your enemy in a yacht race,’ observes George Shaw, Manager of the ORCV’s Melbourne to Vanuatu Ocean Yacht Race adding, ‘to be competitive, you have to keep the yacht’s weight down.’

At the ORCV’s information session, Provisioning for Long Voyages, scheduled for 17th August, Robyn Brooke will talk about what works and what does not; drawing from her experience of cooking on prawn trawlers, charter yachts and during a 10,000km yacht race. She will also show how to bake bread at sea.

George Shaw will talk about a variety of quick fix food options, such as army tucker ’Hungerbuster’ meals, along with the freeze drying process invented by Bob Birdseye.. Kevin Landman will explain NASA’s contribution to a yachtie’s diet through high-energy protein bars and provide sample packs of his Sun Health Food bars.

Host for the evening is John Keogh, owner of Picasso’s, who has been preparing cryovac meals for yachties over the last few years. The meal for the evening will be a variety of the choices available. John is also available to consult with sailors about specific boat requirements like pack sizes.

The Provisioning for Long Voyages presentation evening will take place at Picasso’s Restaurant in Hampton, at 7.00pm, on Wednesday 17th August.
Bookings are $15 a head and can be made by contacting John Keogh at Picasso’s on (03) 9521-9912 to reserve your place.

Two hundred years of food preservation technology has given the modern day yachtie a far better diet than the sailor of 200 years ago, however, that does not mean that competitors in the Melbourne to Vanuatu Ocean Yacht Race won’t be keeping a weather eye open for the presence of the odd weevil or two!

All information on ORCV: www.orcv.org.au/