Offshore Provisioning: Building a 30-Day Pantry That Actually Works at Sea

The provisioning question almost everyone gets wrong on their first long passage is volume. Two adults eating well at sea need around 2,500 to 3,000 calories per day each (more, if you are reefing in 30 knots at 0300). Over 30 days that is roughly 165,000 calories total for the boat. If you provision for 2,000 calories a day, you will be hungry, which makes a tired crew tired faster.

Here is the pantry framework that has worked on three offshore deliveries and survived two transats without any food spoiling.

Step One: The Calorie Audit

Before you buy anything, build a spreadsheet. Six columns: item, calories per unit, units per day, units per passage, weight per unit, total weight. Aim for 2,800 calories per person per day for the first week (you eat more in heavy weather), 2,500 thereafter. Add 15 percent for spoilage and waste. Add another 15 percent if you are serving four people instead of two - the small numbers don't scale linearly.

For a 30-day, two-person passage, you are looking at roughly 90 to 110 kilograms of food. That is more than first-time provisioners expect. It will fill every locker you have.

Step Two: The Three-Tier Pantry

Split everything you buy into three tiers based on how soon it spoils.

Tier 1 - First 5 days. Fresh produce, fresh bread, fresh dairy, fresh meat. Eat the most fragile stuff first. Refrigerated tomatoes, cucumber, and lettuce don't make it past day 6 in the tropics, period. Buy them as if they were dated.

Tier 2 - Days 6 to 18. Hard vegetables (cabbage, carrots, onions, potatoes, sweet potatoes, pumpkins, garlic, ginger), citrus, hard cheeses sealed in wax, eggs (treated - more on that below), fresh-frozen meat in vacuum bags, long-life milk (UHT), fermented sauerkraut. This is the meat of your provisioning. Cabbage will keep 3 weeks unrefrigerated if it is dry and in shade. Onions keep 4. Potatoes the same.

Tier 3 - Days 18+. Dried pasta, rice, lentils, dried beans, canned proteins (tuna, sardines, chicken, ham), canned vegetables, peanut butter, jam, hard tack, oats, parmesan, hard salami. This tier is the safety stock. If everything goes wrong - the fridge dies, the trip extends, the freezer fails - this tier feeds the crew.

The Egg Question

Yes, you can keep eggs unrefrigerated offshore. They need to be unwashed (the bloom seals the shell) or coated in mineral oil. Stored point-down in a cool locker, turned weekly, they keep 4 to 6 weeks reliably. Buy 2 dozen for a 30-day passage; you will use one egg per person per day on the days you cook eggs. They are protein, and they are cheap insurance.

Stowage by Locker

The principle is simple: heaviest items low and centered, items you use daily within reach of the galley, items you eat on day 28 stowed deepest. In practice:

• Bilge: canned goods, bottled water, long-life milk. Anything that will not be ruined by a wet bilge. Use plastic bins or vacuum-sealed bags.
• Lockers near the galley: oil, salt, sugar, tea, coffee, condiments, day-of-use rice and pasta. Pack in plastic, not glass. Glass and seaways are not friends.
• Vegetable hammocks: hard veg only. Hammocks suspended over the chart table or in the saloon let air circulate. Onions will turn slimy in plastic, and they will not turn slimy in a hammock.
• Fridge or icebox: tier 1 first, then dairy and proteins from tier 2 in week 2.

Water Is Your Other Calorie

Plan for 4 liters per person per day. That is drinking, cooking, dishes, and a small allowance for tea and coffee. For two people over 30 days, that is 240 liters - more than most boats carry in their main tanks. Either run a watermaker (size it for 30 percent above your daily need so you can run it during sun-only solar windows) or carry the full volume in jerricans secured to the stanchions.

If your watermaker is your only source, also carry one jerrican of emergency water per person. A failed membrane in week 3 is a different problem with 20 liters of backup than without.

The List That Comes Back

After every passage, sit down with the crew on the second day in port and write down what you wished you had more of, less of, and never again. Most boats end up with a stable list after three trips. Ours says: more parmesan, fewer canned soups, never again the boxed mashed potatoes.

Provisioning gets easier with reps. Good provisioning is invisible: nobody talks about it, because nobody is hungry, and nothing went bad. That is the goal.