Sh*t Bugger Damn

Jan Paine

Description

Crossing the Atlantic on a yacht can be a daunting prospect, especially for the first time. Jan and Greg Paine crossed the Atlantic in January 2020 on their 50 foot Northwind sailing yacht, Viridian.Jan oversaw the provisioning and cooking for the crew of five. She researched online before setting sail, hoping to find advice on what and how much to buy, how to preserve produce, what to cook and how best to cook in challenging conditions; but couldn't find a definitive guide.After a couple of days at sea, Jan started to catalogue and photograph her experiences to help others planning similar crossings. She has included details of what and how much she bought, the menu for the entire journey and the main recipes as well as sections on storage, equipment, cleaning, and general housekeeping. She includes numerous helpful tips and advice based on the experience of what went well and what didn't.You will guess from the title that quite a lot of swearing was involved, because as all sailors know, not everything goes to plan at sea!Jan hopes her book will help others to have a smooth crossing and may be of general interest to sailors living aboard a yacht or when making occasional longer overnight passages.

Sujets

• Expeditions
• Boats
• Boat
• Atlantic Ocean

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 28 novembre 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781803138268
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Dedicated to my legendary mum, Betty , who is going strong in her 90s;
cooking up a storm f or visitors and famil y , and still sw earing in the kitchen!
Thank y ou, Mum, f or teaching me to cook, to juggle many things at once, to
work hard and if shit happens... to just sw ear a lot to reduce the stress!
Copyright © 2021 Jan Paine
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review,
as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be
reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in
writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms
of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside
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ISBN 9781803138268
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SHIT , BUGGER, D AMN 3
CONTENTS
4
9
26
45
51
112
7
12
32
38
47
54
CONTENTS

1. BA CK GROUND AND INTRODUCTI ON

2. THE WEIGH IN

3. PLANNING AND PREP ARA TION

4. PRO VISIONING AND QUANTITIES USED

5. STORA GE

6. EQUIPMENT AND POWER

7 . MEAL TIMES AND ROUTINES

8. CLEANING AND GENERAL HOUSEKEEPING

9. SWEARING, A CCIDENTS AND NEAR MISSES

10. OUR MENU FOR THE TRIP

11. RECIPES AND TIPS FOR COOKING WHILST A T SEA

12. OUR KEY LEARNING POINTS
SHIT , BUGGER, D AMN 4
1. BA CK GROUND AND INTRODUCTION
Hi. I’m Jan Paine and I ha ve been tra velling and living on our 50-foo t Northwind
sailing yacht Viridian, with my husband Greg, since Ma y 2017 . W e spent almost
three y ears exploring the Med before wending our w ay do wn to the Canaries, in
readiness f or crossing the A tlantic to the Caribbean, in January 2020.
W e started planning for this trip about 12 months in ad vance, firstly by securing
our cr ew , and then involving them in the planning for the A tlantic voyag e. W e
knew we would be tr avelling as a solo boat r ather than on a rall y because our
cre w couldn ’ t manage work commitments until after Christmas.
W e crossed with thr ee extr a cre w , all e xperienced sailors, skilled engineers, and
good friends; five of us in total; four men and me.
F ully stocked and low in the water as Viridian left her mooring in Las P almas on 4th January 2020.
1. B A CK GROUND
AND INTRODUCTI ON
SHIT , BUGGER, D AMN 5
1. BA CK GROUND AND INTRODUCTION
It was a v ery long way . W e didn’t see any ships after day 4 at the waypoint X
until we reached the Caribbean!
Everyone had a specific r esponsibility , with my husband Greg as over all skipper .
Paul took responsibility for communication and health and safety , Richard for
maintenance and repair s, K evin for na vigation, and I volunteered to do all the
pro visioning and catering in exchang e for no night w atches! I thought that was
a good deal befor e we set out, but with hindsight it wasn ’t an easy gig, despite
m y careful planning!
Mealtimes ar e k ey events on such a long and sometimes monotonous journe y ,
so I wanted it to be memor able for all the right r easons, and to k eep our
amiable and fun cre w happy .
W e had estimated that the journey would tak e around thr ee weeks, so I cater ed
for 24 da ys of excellent eating, and could ha ve easily fed us all for a further fe w
weeks on canned, bottled, and dried food, if we had needed it.
The journe y from Las Palmas Marina on Gr an Canaria, to Port Louis Marina on
the island of Grenada in the Wind war d Islands actually took 19 full da ys and 30
minutes, but because we set off just befor e lunch on the 4th J anuary , and arrived
after eating lunch on the 23rd J anuary , I ha ve counted it as 20 da ys for catering
purposes in this book.
SHIT , BUGGER, D AMN 6
1. BA CK GROUND AND INTRODUCTION
When w e arrived in Grenada and I began to tak e stock, I r ealised that during
the journey I had made at least 95 breakfasts, almost 1000 br ew - ups (tea, coffee,
cuppa soup and hot chocolate ), 100 lunches, pr ovided 95 afternoon snacks and
cook ed 95 evening meals, plus un veiling numer ous overnight treats.
I over -catered on some things and under provisioned on a couple of other s
which I will explain as w e go on, but all in all we ate w ell throughout the trip .
This is the story of our journe y fr om a food perspective. I ha ve included the
highs and lows, the laughter , and the grumpiness, and ha ve even included a
section specifically about my swearing, which the more sensiti ve of you ma y
wish to skip over .
I didn ’ t set out to record this e xperience for a book, so only started taking
photos after we left. All the photos ar e tak en on my old iPhone and when we
wer e rocking about, as a r esult they aren ’ t professional, so please excuse that.
I hope this account of our experience, and the r ecipes included, will be of some
use to you if y ou are planning a similar journe y , or just inter ested in eating and
cooking on board.
SHIT , BUGGER, D AMN 7
2. THE WEIGH IN
Ev eryone was hoping to lose a fe w pounds during the crossing but recognised
that we were likel y to hav e only short bursts of activity , interspersed with quite
a lot of sitting around, so w e weren’t holding out too much hope. I also realised
that mealtimes were lik ely to be a major source of entertainment, and my plans
didn’t really involv e much misery , so I fully expected to be blamed if there was no
weight loss at the end.
The articles I had r ead in preparing for the trip said it w as important to have a
supply of goodies for the night watches and that pr oved to be excellent ad vice.
I stock ed well and r eplenished the goody dra wer every couple of day s, with
chocolate, biscuits, cereal bar s, cak e, nuts, and dried fruit. Whate ver I put in the
dr awer quickl y disappeared! W e had onl y a few treats left at the end which wer e
then polished off in the first couple of da ys in Gr enada. I don ’ t think you can
over pr ovision on the ‘ good y dr awer . ’
N evertheless, we all had g ood intentions, so we shar ed a weigh- in on the morning
of our departure, and a final weigh - in when we arrived.
2. THE WEIGH IN
An hour bef ore departure in Gran Canaria – last beers being finished.
W eigh in completed. All f eeling a bit podgy from Christmas.
SHIT , BUGGER, D AMN 8
2. THE WEIGH IN
The f our weight losers with no ticeably smaller beer tummies!
THE RESUL TS!
The consensus w as that this was due largel y to not drinking alcohol during the
journey , and because on the fir st three da ys w hen everyone felt slightl y queasy ,
we ate less. I assur e those of you alr eady speculating… m y slight weight gain
was not due to an y secr et drinking in the galley!
Paul lost 5.6kg
K evin lost 3.3kg
Greg lost 2.8kg
Richard lost 2.5kg
I managed to gain 0.2kg
SHIT , BUGGER, D AMN 9
3. PLANNING AND PREP ARA TI ON
Greg and I are both extremel y interested in f ood and hav e enjoy ed trying out
many restaurants and local gastronomic specialities during our trav els across
the Mediterranean.
In prepar ation for our A tlantic trip, I started squirr elling aw ay interesting non -
perishable ingredients, pur chased in differ ent countries. I also tried to re verse
engineer (guess the r ecipe from the taste ) and pr actice recipes that w e had
eaten in some top restaur ants during our tr avels.
As a result, w e had a very varied diet thr oughout the crossing. I didn ’ t want it
to feel lik e student far e or a camping e xperience so I had a few delusions of
gr andeur and visions of posh pr esentation, which I quickly had to rein in; but
over all we ate a mixtur e of good old reliable one pot casser oles, some delicious
home- made soups as well as some mor e interesting and challenging dishes.
3. PLANNING AND
PREP ARA TION
I hav e included the entire menu f or the trip in section 10 and the recipes I think
are worth sharing in section 11.
So, our provisions also included:
• Spices from Tur k ey
• Harissa, dates, and couscous fr om Tunisia
• Risotto, black rice, pasta, dried mushr ooms, and truffles fr om Italy
• Olives, orzo , mor e truffles and exotic salad dressing and stuffed vine lea ves
from Gr eece
• Some typical UK stuff fr om Marks and Spencer and M orrison ’ s in Gibr altar;
including tea bags, Christmas cak e, hot chocolate, cup a soup , bak ed beans,
W orcester sauce, Asian cooking ingr edients and sauces.
Everything else was sour ced from mar k ets and supermark ets in Spain. W e
could ha ve bought virtually e verything in Las Palmas on Gran Canaria, with
hindsight, but that might not ha ve been quite so much fun, and I didn ’ t r ealise
that was a possibility until we got ther e.
SHIT , BUGGER, D AMN 10
3. PLANNING AND PREP ARA TION
Fig balsamic dressing. Wild dried mushrooms.
PRE-COOKING
I measured our freezer compartment and wor k ed out that I could fit six 2 litre
containers ne xt to each other , if all the same shape and closely pack ed; so , I
bought the containers that w ould stack easily and made 6 meals in advance
in the galley , taking advantage of the flat conditions in the marina. T o sa ve
freezer space, I made the meals without the carb or much veg in them, instead
adding that at the time of re- heating and serving during the trip .
1 kilo of cook ed pr otein in its sauce work ed out to perfectly fit in each
container and served five comfortably and would probabl y ha ve fed six, as we
alw ay s seemed to have a little bit left over , even after seconds.
The six meals I made and fr oze