Meals not miles—a new perspective on provisioning and time spent at sea
by David Schmidt 2 Jul 03:00 AEST
July 1, 2025
It's hard to beat fresh-baked chocolate-chip cookies after a long day of beating to weather © David Schmidt
One of the great joys of distance racing unfurls the moment that the dock lines are untied. Suddenly, the myriad packing lists that inevitably define most trip-planning efforts become about as relevant as a tax return from eight years ago, and the mind can focus on one thing: Making the boat go fast. But, as anyone who has ever prepped a boat for an ocean race, a long passage, or an offshore rally knows, the trail leading to the magical moment when docking lines are coiled and the fenders are stowed is one that's marked by massive amounts of good, old-fashioned work.
But, if orchestrated right, these preparations can also be an opportunity for crewmembers to work together outside of their normal onboard roles and get to know each other better.
This week marks the three starts (July 1, July 3, and July 5) of the 2025 Transpacific Yacht Race, which will take the fleet from Los Angeles, California, to Honolulu, Hawaii. All told, this represents some 2,225 nautical miles of bluewater sailing, which can take anywhere from 4 days, 6 hours, 32 minutes, and 30 seconds (which is the multihull elapsed time record set by H.L. Enroe's ORMA 60 trimaran Mighty Merloe in 2017) to several weeks, depending on one's steed and crew.
Some simple math reveals that this translates into a heck of a lot of snacks, meals, and cups of coffee.
For example, if a hypothetical crew of eight takes 11 days to reach the Aloha State, this equates to 88 breakfasts, 88 lunches, 88 dinners, plus about 176 snacks and about 264 cups of coffee.
I can only imagine that planning and packing these meals is serious effort.
I recently had the opportunity to sail the first half of the 2025 edition of the Van Isle 360 International Yacht Race (May 30 to June 14), which circumnavigates Vancouver Island in a series of stage races. Our team began meetings via Zoom in January, and we divided and conquered the work list via a lengthy Excel spreadsheet that detailed who was responsible for what, and when the work needed to be completed.
My task was provisioning the boat for the first half of the race.
While this job initially felt complex, given that we would be sailing with six souls and six different sets of dietary preferences, restrictions, and preferences, I had a few important factors working in my favor.
For starters, my shipmates were super responsive to my requests for preferences and restrictions; the boat had done the race three times before, meaning that our skipper already owned the galley gear, and my wife also volunteered a bunch of time helping me to create menus and detailed grocery lists, and even joining me on Costco runs. Plus, as mentioned, the Van Isle 360 involves a series of stage races, and while some evening stops—like the anchorage at Port Neville—had no resupply opportunities, others, like Nanaimo and Campbell River, offered full-scale grocery stores.
Granted, there were some provisioning complexities involved thanks to the international border separating Washington State from British Columbia (read: some items are prohibited from changing countries), but—unlike anyone prepping a boat for Transpac or any other long offshore race or passage—I knew that there would be restaurants and resupply opportunities as the fleet sailed north.
Still, there was that moment, about two days before I left for the trip, when I found myself staring down the massive pile of provisions that I had acquired, pondering if I had overinvested in certain items (read: coffee) while possibly under-provisioning others.
About a week later, as I began finding the bottom of some items, I had my answer.
While I've sailed my whole life and have been lucky enough to participate in a lot of races, cruises, and deliveries, I had never provisioned for a crew of six for a seven-day adventure. Nor, it turns out, did I consider how weather forecasts could influence my shopping list.
For example, I remember standing in Costco, deliberating a massive bag of shelf-stable tortillas. The weight (over five pounds) and the volume (more than several compressed puffy jackets) seemed immense. I almost reshelved the package in favor of more loaves of pre-sliced bread, but my wife's sensibilities thankfully prevailed.
Flash forwards a month, and these tortillas were some of our first casualties, while our bread supply was going strong until the end. This had nothing to do with gluten and everything to do with GRIBs. That's because our delivery from Seattle to the starting line and our five races up the Vancouver Island's coast to Port Hardy were windy affairs that often involved bouncy sea states.
The net result, of course, was that roll-ups were easier to eat on deck than sandwiches, the latter of which often expel lettuce, bits of cheese, and dollops of hummus, and are more vulnerable to spray and rain (read: structural stability).
In retrospect, I should have skipped the bread entirely and purchased a second mothership of tortillas.
The same applied to packs of trail mix. While these are healthy (enough) snacks, trying to accurately ingest handfuls of raisins, peanuts, and M&Ms while bashing into 25-knot headwinds proved much harder than simply munching an energy bar. In retrospect, I should have purchased more energy bars and less Costco-sized bags of dried fruit and nuts.
Other lessons were also learned. For example, while yogurt, granola, and fruit can get a little tiresome on its fourth breakfast appearance, it's an easy meal to prepare and clean up, and its cold-to-begin-with nature also made it easier for crewmembers who were eating at different times.
And finally, while our crew tries to eat healthy and generally gravitates more towards the produce section of a grocery store than the aisles containing ultra-processed foods, I did notice that the chocolate-chip cookies—both the fresh-baked ones and the tub of Trader Joe's cookies—went much faster than the large bag of baby carrots that I accidentally placed too close to the cold plate (they froze solid) in the freezer.
While I'm sure that this can be attributed to the fact that I froze the carrots (ahem), if I had a mulligan here, I would have brought along a second (and maybe a third) tub of TJ's cookies, while also taking better care to ensure that the carrots stayed above 32 degrees Fahrenheit.
So, while my provisions planning for the Van Isle 360 was a relatively simple affair compared to planning for a much bigger offshore contest like the Transpac Race, my experience did help reshape how I look at distance races. Sure, one can measure the adventure by the miles sailed, the sunsets enjoyed, or the GRIB files remaining to be downloaded, but one can also count the number of meals, snacks, and coffees that need to be acquired, prepared, and served to their crew.
As for coffee, mea culpa, I did overinvest. But, given that a packet of Starbucks Via Instant coffee weighs almost nothing, I'll admit that I didn't lose too much sleep over this decision. For starters, I wasn't sure if this resource could be easily replenished, and I also learned on this trip that instant coffee tastes much better if one uses two packets, rather than a single serving. While this latter discovery burned down our stash much faster than rolling singles, it was a real luxury to have a morning brew(s) that came close to resembling the real thing.
So, to all the crews preparing for the Transpac Race, we at Sail-World wish you and your team great luck in this bluewater classic. And for anyone preparing provisions for Transpac, or for any other distance race or cruise, remember, while baby carrots (eventually) thaw, chocolate-chip cookies are great at any temperature.
May the four winds blow you safely home.
David Schmidt
Sail-World.com North American Editor