Cooking While Underway

It is often touted that a gimbal stove is an absolute must onboard a cruising yacht. The gimbal allows the entire stove to swing with the heeled vessel, keeping the contents on the cooktop level. This means that you can cook while sailing with a rail in the water.

The alternative to a gimbal stove is a fixed unit, that simply leans over with the yacht as you sail. These are touted as "only useful in port" when the yacht is anchored and sitting vertically.

The truth is, fixed stoves have been around and used on sailing vessels for far longer than gimbal stoves have. There is no denying the convenience of a gimbaled unit, but this doesn't mean that a fixed stove is inoperable while sailing.

While working on a tall ship, I had an interesting conversation with the ships cook. The tall ship has a very large fixed stove, and no pot holders! She said that cooking on the fixed stove was simple, all you need to do is use a very tall pot and never fill it more than half. As the ship heels over, the food will lean over in the pot, but the contents will not spill over. The lack of pot holders was also alarming, but apparently the friction of the pot on the iron grate was enough to keep the pots in place. Since they don't slide, they don't bother with pot holders.

I took this information back to our own boat and applied it to great lengths. Our stove is fixed, and we use it frequently while under sail. We simply only cook while sailing on port tack, as this would put the stove on the leeward rail. If the contents of the stove were to spill out, they would spill away from any crew standing by it, cooking the delicious meal.

If we are heeling excessively, we simply heave to, which reduces heel and makes life inside the cabin much more enjoyable!

Cooking on a fixed stove is nothing out of the ordinary on a sailing yacht, it simply takes a few precautions to make sure that the meal is safely created without any injury to the crew. This will allow you to cruise on a smaller budget as fixed stoves are cheaper to purchase and much easier to install.

Finding Time for What You Enjoy Most

Cruising might seem like an endless string of vacation. Each day as carefree as the last, which means that everyday allows for you to relax and enjoy what you love most.

The problem is that it is easy to get wrapped up into the same meaningless routine that you had on shore, just that you take this routine up in a new and exciting location.

While cruising, things will break, and tasks will present themselves. You can either engulf yourself in these tasks and spend your entire cruise working on them or you can take some time and stop all the madness to enjoy what you set off for.

I am a workaholic and will easily bury myself into all the projects I can invent for myself to carry out. Maddie is very good at enjoying the moment and is especially good at finding the perfect time to include me in the moment.

One day, I was busy toiling away at some meaningless job I had created for myself when Maddie called my name. I heard her voice but could not see her anywhere. It turns out she was sitting in the hammock watching the sunset.

She called for me as it was almost to the best part. The sky was still blue but it was about to turn a myriad of reds and oranges. She called me to join her in the hammock to enjoy the color changing sky, and that was the whole point of being there.

Looking back on that day, I honestly can't even remember what I was trying to accomplish, but I do remember the magnificent sunset! Be sure that wherever you end up, that you enjoy the reason you are there for! These will be the memories that you will retain for the rest of your life, not the work you had to do.

Stress and Schedules

Cruising is often thought of as carefree and relaxed. There is no stress because there is no schedule! This holds true as long as you live a life with no schedule.  

Sadly, a scheduleless life is usually a solitary one. How will you meet up with friends and family while cruising without a schedule? How will they know when to come somewhere to meet up?  Landlubbers love their schedules, but cruisers also have them too. 

Imagine that you meet another boat and you guys plan to meet again at another island in a month. You now have a schedule! 

If you have a powerful diesel motor,, schedules are rather easy to follow, as you will be able to arrived at a predetermined place at a prescribed time. I met a couple once who had to leave the anchorage at 10am, arrive at another harbor by noon, and have those people in a different anchorage by 2pm to meet other friends. This schedule seemed ridiculous to us as they were planning their voyage at an average speed of 7 knots!  

With their motor, they were able to stick to this schedule, but they never did get to sail on that day! 

In our situation, where we don't have the luxury of a diesel motor, we are completely reliant on the wind to power us. This proves a hazard with schedules. If the wind is from the wrong direction, we will be a long time getting there. If the winds are light, we will be going slow. Basically, it is nearly impossible for us to plan to arrive anywhere at a set time because our travel time is always in limbo!

Our solution to this dilemma is to arrive somewhere, and then invite people to join us there. This allows us to get places at our own speed, and lets us rest at the destination before guests arrive. While this system works well for destinations close to us, it still poses a problem with longer term plans.  

In our current situation, we are planning to cross the Atlantic after the hurricane season cools off. We hope to fly back for Christmas to spend the holidays with the family, but this would require us to be at a major port city that has an airport attached to it! While we have many months to complete this journey, it is a nagging feeling in the backs of our minds that we might miss Christmas!  

This is exactly how schedules cause stress while cruising. If we could completely rid our lives of schedules, then we would also be able to reduce the stress of life considerably. Sadly, we came from land and the concept of some form of future plan keeps lingering in our minds as we seem incapable of actually freeing ourselves from the clutches of time and dates. 

Liveaboards vs. Cruisers

Before we set off cruising, we started off as liveaboards. To those on land, both of these options sound like someone who lives on their boat. While this is true, to boaters, there is a huge distinction. 

Cruisers are those who take their boats places, be it for a day, a weekend, or even years. They are ready to untie the lines that hold them back and set off over the horizon!  

Liveaboards are those who never leave their mooring. These can be people who live on a mooring ball, at anchor, or in a slip. The point to them is that they will not move their boat very far because to them it is a floating home. 

This distinction goes even further as we delve into it more. All people who live on their boats are crazy, why else would you do it? But there are different levels of crazy in this world, and they help distinguish liveaboards from cruisers. 

A cruiser will take pride in their yacht. This is their home and their travel machine! It opens the world up to endless adventures and new destinations. They will keep their top sides clean and their wood trim in good condition. Some go so far as to keep the brightwork varnished and the top sides looking like a mirror! The insides of these boats will be functional, as they live here but also sail it as well. We all have our clutter piles, but the cruisers clutter will usually be stable while heeled over!  

A liveaboard will never take their boat out, so the need for efficient sailing dwindles away as they become more emphatic in living functionality. A common sight to see is a window unit air conditioner hacked into the companionway, giving them a comfortable living condition. These boats also tend to be older, and thus have leaky decks. The simplest solution to this it to fling a tarp over the boom to keep most of the rain out of the boat! The cockpit will begin to get cluttered as the insides are full and stuff gets piled on top of other stuff. Since the purpose of the boat is to live in and not to look pretty, these boats tend to be pretty dirty looking.

One last common trait that we have found with marina dwelling liveaboards is a giant TV screen. TVs are a wonderful invention. They allow you to travel the world, into the imaginations of others without ever leaving your couch! You can simply sit there and explore the universe without ever moving. It is very common to walk by a liveaboard boat that is so small and so piled up with junk that you wonder how anyone could live in such a small space, when you hear the TV blaring away. Then you realize how simple the answer is, the TV allows them to live there. 

Their boat is nothing more than a floating theater. They can sit and watch the TV for days with a place to sleep and a eat, all within an arms reach. Instead of going out and experiencing the world, they can just as easily flip on the TV and have the world be brought to them.  

Cruisers don't typically have a TV in their boat, and if they do, it is a small screen that doesn't take up too much space on a bulkhead. This is because cruisers like to experience life firsthand and a giant TV would just get in their way. 

Each person gets to live their life in the manner of their choosing, but there seems to be a huge gap between liveaboards and cruisers. This gap is so large that I have found it comical to listen to others who have lived on boats go to great lengths to clarify that they were cruisers and not just a liveaboard. 

Weight Distribution

Sailboats are, by their very nature, floating. They are designed to float level and flat by their designer and equipment is placed in the yacht in such a manner that the weights are balanced around the boat to keep its trim level. Too much weight on one side, and the yacht will list toward that side. A slight list of only a few degrees is grossly apparent when you see the mast leaning over towards that side. 

Keeping the weight balanced as you load up your cruising yacht with everything you think you might need on your voyages can be tricky. Tools, pots and pans, and canned foods, all add considerable weight to the yacht and must be stowed in a weight conscious manner. If you load everything you own on the port side, your yacht will list significantly.  

Sometimes, this means stowing things in the "wrong room". I have met cruisers who keep all their cooking ware in the V berth because the stern was weight down too much by the dinghy in the davits. Every time they wanted to cook a meal, the cook would have to carefully consider what she needed and retrieve it from the forward cabin before she started cooking. This was not a long walk, by any standards, but people on land don't usually think of storing the pots and pans that are used in the kitchen in the bedroom. 

While these solid items are easy to stow weight consciously, another important item on a yacht can prove to be a bit more challenging to visualize: Water. 

Water weighs approximately 8 pounds per gallon, meaning that if you carry 100 gallons somewhere, you should rather think of it as 800 pounds somewhere! 

When your water supply is divided up into various tanks located around the yacht, it is important to consider where the tank is before you start to draw from it. In our case, we have 8 water tanks spread throughout the yacht, 4 on the starboard side and 4 on the port side. Collectively, these tanks hold 160 gallons, or 1,280 pounds. 

We were tied up in a marina one day and decided to take advantage of the unlimited water we had access to and chose to flush out our water tanks. The last place we filled up had some unpleasant tasting water, but it was all that was available and we were forced to fill up with it. In an attempt to rid ourselves of the remainder of this water, I began draining the water tanks to then refill them. 

As a meticulous person, I naturally began at tank #1, and worked by way through them in sequential order until I reached tank #8. It wasn't until I began draining tank #5 that I noticed we were heeled over! The list was not too severe, only 3*, but it was still very apparent to us inside the yacht. While Maddie instantly knew why we were listing, it sadly took me a moment to realize what I had done! 

Emptying all the port tanks meant that the starboard side of the boat weight an additional 640 pounds! Upon filling everything back up, the list was eliminated and we were once again level, but at that moment, it was rather alarming. 

The valuable lesson to be learned is, when using your water supply while cruising, be sure that you draw on tanks from both sides of the yacht. If your tanks are located fore-aft, draw in a way that will not cause trim issues. If your tanks are located arthwartship, draw in a way that will not cause heel issues.  

Our typical method for water consumption is to draw on one port tank, and then the analogous starboard tank. This will cause very minor listing issues as we cruise, but not enough to justify any alarm. 

As far as using your water tanks as ballast while sailing, this can be tricky. If you are going to be on starboard tack for the next few weeks, you might be inclined to use the water on the port side as it will help level out the yacht as you sail. This might be true for the time being, but should you encounter foul weather and need to tack or jibe, your yacht will now be vastly lopsided and this could enhance the negative effects of the storm on your yacht. For this reason, I would still suggest using the tanks evenly so that in the event of a storm, your yacht will respond normally and predictably.