Cruising tips – Fresh water and cooking on the boat

Today we give you eight life-changing cruising tips that you can still follow before you set sail on your vacation: on managing water on the boat and on cooking on board.

Cruising Tips – Water on the Boat

1. Seawater in kitchen via foot pump. It seems like a return to basics, since the stated goal of all modern boats is to make the crew feel at home. This system avoids resorting to using the boule to have water available for washing dishes and having it directly available at the kitchen sink.

2. Fresh water in kitchen and sinks via foot pump. The treadle pump provides significant savings in water consumption compared to pressure pumps, which, even if care is taken in their use, disperse more water.

3. Solar shower to have hot water available every day. This again saves on consumption compared to using a pressure pump and on on-board energy because the water is heated directly by the sun. The advice is to keep at least a couple on board ready to use.

In the Kitchen

1. How to make bread in 5 minutes. It is necessary to have room in the refrigerator for a large plastic container in which to mix the ingredients needed to make the dough: flour, water, salt and yeast. Let them rise for a week and store the resulting dough in the refrigerator. This way, whenever you want to eat a piece of bread, all you have to do is cut a piece of dough and put it to bake in the oven for half an hour.

2. The pressure stove makes it possible to cook complete meals even hours in advance to keep them warm, a useful prospect in the case of long sailings especially with rough seas. In addition, the pressure cooker reduces cooking time without limiting the imagination of the on-board cook and reduces gas consumption.

3. Portable 12v freezer that can be placed under the dinette table is a practical system for freezing meat, cheese, etc.

4. Limit the use of paper on board by replacing paper towels with kitchen towels and using cloth napkins. This shrewdness saves money, decreases the amount of waste and, why not, safeguards the environment as well.

5. System for storing food under vacuum, e.g., FoodSaver. This is ideal for when you catch fresh fish and want to preserve them or to freeze any kind of food. In addition, eliminating the air inside the bags saves space in the refrigerator or freezer. It can also be used to store coffee, sugar, flour, pasta, and to stow boat parts so that they are not exposed to saltiness.