July 11, 2003

• Plucky Lady I really admire people who build their own sailboats. If you really know what you want, and you can’t find anyone who makes it, it’s the only thing to do. Matt would kill me if I told him I wanted to build a steel cutter ship. But that’s what this couple did. I am amazed they stayed married! I guess sandblasting and welding brings some couples closer together. It’s a gorgeous ship. The gaff rig is pretty, but. . . what would it look like with a junk rig? Heh. Hey, Matt, let’s go to Lowe’s and get 5000 kg of steel!!

  Luc explains on his website why he chose a fixed keel over a swing keel, and he makes some pretty good arguments. (West Wight Potters and similar boats are nice around our shallow Midwestern lakes because of their retractable keel and shallow draft.) If an ocean-going vessel is what you’re looking for, the fixed keel is not a disadvantage and may actually save you from doing stupid things close to shore! His wife Debbie also has some practical advice and recipes for cooking at sea without refrigeration or ovens. Bread in a frying pan! Yum!

  Cooking at sea is not always a pleasure especially when you are only two on board and you cannot trust the other one in the galley, so if you want to survive there is only one thing to do, get down to work. I love cooking and my husband loves eating. We don’t use our refrigerator at sea since on a sailboat there is never enough energy to spare. During our trip our lockers were filled with canned food but we hate to eat that stuff. Anyway you would be surprised at the great meals that you can make with it, all you have to do is be creative. When I was on watch at night I was always trying to figure out what to do with all the cans in our lockers. Before we left for our trip I read all the books about cooking at sea and we left our home port with a big stock of food. A year later we still had a very big stock of food left over. It’s very easy to write a book on how to cook at sea when you have never been out to know what you are talking about. The first book that I bought on what to cook at sea is great. The recipes sounds delicious but there is a problem, you need to have a freezer to keep your meat, you need to have tons of different spices, a cold storage for your vegetables and you need to have a big oven. Also you need hours to prepare the meals and of course the wine has to be at the right temperature. To try out those recipes it’s better to keep your boat tied up in the port, that way it’s possible to do so. The recipes that I’ve created while we were at sea are as cheap as you can find. In the beginning I always used my steam cooker but I found that it’s too heavy and too difficult to handle at sea and since my recipes are fast cooking meals, I don’t need to use it. All the ingredients that I use could be found aboard almost every sailboat. Rice & canned tuna. If you are a lucky fisherman then this recipe can be even cheaper. It will take about twenty minutes to prepare. For this one you need 200gr of rice, a can of tuna, the size depends on what you have handy, two large onions, a can of crushed tomatoes, salt and pepper, a chicken cube if you have some aboard and dried parsley, I use a lot because we like it. Fry some onions in a little bit of oil or butter, add a can of crushed tomatoes, a chicken cube, a can of tuna, salt, pepper, add the rice and fry for about two minutes. Add enough water to cook the rice and leave it to simmer until all the water has been absorbed. You can do this with any kind of canned fish or shellfish.   I have found that the potatoes could last for at least a month, so we always had a lot on board. Fresh vegetables are difficult to keep and most of it goes overboard unless you eat it all within three or four days but if you are sea sick for the first few days then there is no way you can finish it before it goes bad. I never keep fresh eggs longer than a week even though I heard it could be kept for a longer period if it’s protected with Vaseline. Vegetables & smoked canned sausage. This is a meal that you throw all the vegetables that will go bad soon into the pot instead of overboard. You need a can of sausage, if you like you can add more than one can, salt and pepper, dried bacon and some oil or butter. Chop the vegetables and stir-fry slightly, add the sausage and continue to fry for another five minutes. You can add some dry bacon if you have any and even if you don’t it’s delicious anyway. Add some salt and pepper, cover the vegetables with enough water to cook it until it’s tender and all the water has been evaporated. If you don’t have a lot if time to spare on your cooking, you can leave some liquid and it’s just as good. This takes about twenty-five minutes to prepare.   Macaroni in béchamel sauce and canned salmon. You need 200g of macaroni, a can of salmon, dried parsley, salt and pepper, Parmesan and béchamel sauce. Boil the macaroni until tender, I always try to find the ones that cook very fast. You can make your own béchamel but why bother when you can find it in the form of powder and all you have to do is add water. Bring your sauce to a boil, you can add some Parmesan if you like, add some dry parsley, salt and pepper. Add the salmon and the sauce to the macaroni and mix it, if you like you can add some butter, you can also put it in the oven for another ten minutes. This takes about twenty-five minutes to prepare.   Corned beef could be found in any part of the world too and at sea it could be very delicious. Corned beef hash. You need five large potatoes, two large onions, salt, pepper and garlic if you like it. Cut the potatoes in small cubes, that way it will cook faster. To avoid using oil, I add the corned beef and onions together and the onions are cooked in the grease that comes out of the corned beef. Fry until the onions are tender, then add the potatoes, cook until the potatoes are tender and drain off all the excess grease.   Before we went off to sea I had no idea how to make bread, so we bought a lot of that special bread which was supposed to last for three to four weeks. In less than a week it was all green! So, I started fooling around with flour and yeast and to my surprise I came up with bread. With the tips collected later on from other boats, my bread is now very good. So actually, making bread at sea is not difficult at all and you don’t even need to have an oven. The oven on our boat is very small and there is no way that I can make a bread in it, big enough to last for two or three days. I make my bread in a cast iron frying pan. For the bread you need: 400 gr. of flour, if you like you can mix 100gr of whole meal flour and 300 gr. of normal white flour. One tablespoon of sugar, one teaspoon of salt and one tablespoon of dried yeast. You also need a bit less than half a litre of water which must be at room temperature. Mix everything together in a large bowl for fifteen to twenty minutes. Cover it with a piece of plastic film or a kitchen towel and leave it until it has doubled in size, this takes about 45 minutes. If that does not happen then you did something wrong but don’t give up because it’s a great pleasure to have the smell of fresh bread at sea. If you plan to make your bread in a frying pan like I do then you need to have a deep pan so that the bread can rise. You also need to have something to cover the flame because you should not place the pan on the naked flame. After the dough has doubled in size, mix it again for another five mins, make the form of bread that you want and leave it to raise for another 30mins. To avoid that the bread falls I put it directly in the pan in which it’s going to be baked. When it’s ready, all you have to do is put it on the stove. Do not butter the pan, just flour it slightly. The baking time is about 40 minutes on a low fire but not too low, you have to adjust it until you find the right temperature. To bake the bread you have to cover the pan with another frying pan but make sure that there is space for the bread to raise. Bake for about twenty minutes on each side, if you have the right temperature you will have a nice golden brown bread. All of this takes a long time but it’s worth it. Mostly I make my bread while I’m on watch.   So, even on a small budget you can eat well at sea but it’s necessary to have a few ideas so that you don’t become bored eating out of cans. Of course there are days when the weather is no good or when I’m not in a good mood because there is a problem to get our Taylor’s stove going that we find that eating out of cans is not so bad at all. There are many more recipes but if you are crossing the Atlantic in three weeks then you can repeat the same meals or try to invent some more. It’s a very good hobby at sea but of course a nice big steak is always welcome too. Dried ham is very good to have on board too but you have to make sure that it’s really dry if not it will become green very fast. It also make’s a very good snack when on watch at night instead of chocolate and other stuff. De one that we bought lasted one and a half month without any problem, I just kept it wrapped up in a kitchen towel. Anyway, cooking is not the only job on board, there is always something to do. Before we left for our trip I had no Idea what it would have been like except what I read in books. I was surprised because what I read in the books and the pictures that I saw of women in their swimming suits laying on the deck while they were at sea, well I’m still waiting to have a chance to do so. Not that I need a tan but just to do like everybody does, at least in the books. Talking about books, even if you don’t read a lot you will find that reading while on watch helps the time to go by very fast and it also helps you to stay awake. I love reading, during my watch I spend a lot of time doing so, sometimes one book per day. There is also the flying fish that could keep you awake especially if it lands on your head like it happened to me. Just imagine the shock, sitting all alone in the cockpit on a dark night in open sea and suddenly something bangs you in your head, or suddenly a tired bird falls on your head, it may sound funny but it’s true. At sea you need to have enough sleep because tiredness could be a big enemy in a couple even if you have the best relationship. In the beginning it was very difficult for us because there was a lack of sleep. We tried to keep watch two hours at a time but it was too short for the one that went to sleep. Then we tried four hours but it was too long for the one who was on watch. We finally made it with three hours and it works great for us. Sailing is probably not what many women would choose to do on their own but since that’s what the husband or boy friend chose, then some women follow or quit. I met my husband when he had the idea to build the boat, I followed him, we built the boat together, we went off to sea together, we are still together and we plan to stay together. Due to my husband’s job we travel all over the world and we like it but it’s not the same like when we are on vacation, we don’t choose the countries, we just go. Travelling with our boat is different we can choose where we want to go. At the moment we are preparing a new project which should be ready for the summer 2001. We have decided to quit and live our lives the way we choose to. It’s maybe a crazy project to quit a good paying job and start it all over again but life is short and we hope to live it to a maximum. Leaving all the stress behind us is something that we are really looking forward to. Our site will be updated during our trip. – from http://members.tripod.com/sailyacht/ladyuk/acrosoce.htm

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