Provisioning for Emergencies

[tomperanteau]

Has anyone else here considered provisioning your boat to be a place of refuge in the event of a catastrophe? If something where to happen from mother nature, or perhaps our politicians manage to run out country into the ground as they all seem bent on, would you use your boat to escape to?

If so, how much food, in pounds, do you estimate you have on-hand? We have a good stock of rice, beans and canned food.

[Minnewaska]

I'm going to take the 5th. I'm pretty sure this idea snuck into the rationale for buying the boat, but I haven't been called to testify until now. Did my wife put you up to this?

[sailingdog]

Looking like this is a better and better idea as the days go by...

[tomperanteau]

Originally Posted by Minnewaska

I'm going to take the 5th. I'm pretty sure this idea snuck into the rationale for buying the boat, but I haven't been called to testify until now. Did my wife put you up to this?

LOL! No. A curiosity question. The wife and I have prepared our boat for a quick getaway in any event that requires it. It's also great to have the security of knowing that we are fully stocked if we sail off-shore and something happens.

[vega1860]

When we lived in Hawaii we were aware that one week of missed shipping would lead to serious food shortages. Two weeks and the natives would revert to cannibalism

We keep at least six months of provisions aboard - mostly freeze dried back-packing type stuff but also a lot of cans and jars of non-perishables. We think you need to have some of both because the freeze dried stuff requires a lot of water. Even though we have a water maker, we think it is prudent not to rely on only one type of food storage.

Of course we also carry the classics: Dried beans, pasta, rice and other grains and lots of peanut butter.

It goes without saying - fishing gear.

Fresh fruits, veggies, meats, eggs etc., we buy just before departure on a trip. There have been discussions about that stuff before so I won't go into it now.

We found a very useful chart for Canned Good Shelf LIfe but it pays to keep in mind that steel cans rust. Plastic jars are better but are illegal and irresponsible to toss overboard. Same for the mylar packages but those are easy to stow for later disposal ashore.

[BubbleheadMd]

I have 5 cases of 12-14 MRE's each. Each MRE contains about 4,000 calories of food, so a single MRE could sustain a person for two days. That's about 120 days of food for a single person, or 120 "meals" of 2000 calories.

Mainly, this is meant to serve as general purpose "emergency" rations, not necessarily collapse-of-the-government rations. Hurricanes, flooding, whatever. Since my boat is a 3 minute walk up the street, I keep the food in the house. It would only take a few moments to load them onto the boat.

I think water is my bigger problem. I need to store more.

[SVAuspicious]

There is a good discussion board on Emergency Food Supplies at food.com .

[tomperanteau]

I agree on the division of food. The wife and I decided a while back that, while it sounded good to pack dried goods on board, it would take water to reconstitute them. Canned goods were heavier, but they had their own water in them. A good balance of both make sense. We are also looking into the freeze dried foods. MREs sound interesting.

While we have about 80 gallons of water, 60 of diesel, and a bit over 300 pounds of food, I'm not sure that you could ever have enough.

Have any of you guys looked into a good distiller as a water purifier? They don't seem to take any more power than a traditional water maker and may be an alternative that is not as expensive.

Thoughts?

[jackdale]

You might want to check out some of the Mormon food sites.

[tomperanteau]

Jack, I dated a Mormon for several months at one point, and she used to tell me about how they were required to store food. Was interesting. Their food sites might apply to storage.