Provisioning A Yacht: A Practical Guide
A yacht holds far less than you think, and the fridge is the smallest thing aboard.
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Provisioning A Yacht: A Practical Guide
Flights booked, boat confirmed, and the last job left is the one nobody plans properly: filling a yacht with a week of food, water and everything else a crew gets through without noticing.
It goes wrong less often at the shop than at the kitchen table where the list was written. A yacht is a small, warm, moving building with a fridge the size of a hotel minibar, and a household shop does not survive contact with it.
What follows is how experienced crews do it. We have advised on charters since 2011 and we are tied to no operator, so this is the version that suits your crew rather than a supplier's.
Quick Navigation
- 1 What Provisioning Actually Means The Questions To Settle Before You Shop
- 2 Provision For Days, Not Weeks Stowage, Fridge Space And The Margin You Do Not Have
- 3 Order Ahead Or Shop On Arrival Two Approaches And What Each One Costs You
- 4 Provisioning With A Skipper Or Hostess Extra Mouths And Who Does The Shopping
- 5 What To Load At The Base Water, Staples And The Boring Things Nobody Remembers
- 6 Fresh Food And Eating Ashore What Keeps, What Spoils And Where Dinner Happens
1.What Provisioning Actually Means
The Questions To Settle Before You Shop
Provisioning is not shopping. It is deciding, before you reach the shop, what the week aboard is going to look like. The list follows from that, and crews who skip the deciding part come home having eaten the same lunch six times.
Settle a few things with everyone coming. How many nights you actually intend to cook, as opposed to how many you imagine you will. Whether anyone has an allergy, does not eat meat, or simply will not touch fish, which is much better known now than when you are anchored off a village with one shop. And who is doing the cooking: one person who enjoys it, a rota, or a hostess if you have one aboard.
Then decide how much of a meal plan you want. A loose one, breakfast and lunch mapped out with dinner left open, is usually the right amount of planning. A rigid seven day menu rarely survives the first change of anchorage.
2.Provision For Days, Not Weeks
Stowage, Fridge Space And The Margin You Do Not Have
This is the single thing most first time crews get wrong. A charter yacht has nowhere near the storage a house does, and the cold storage is the tightest part of it. Every locker you fill is a locker somebody's bag was meant to go in.
So buy for three days, not for the week. Charter routes are built around ports and villages, and you will pass a shop far more often than you expect. Restocking on day three or four costs you an hour ashore and saves you the far worse problem of a fridge crammed so full that nothing in it stays properly cold.
Assume no freezer margin at all. Treat anything frozen as a first night meal rather than an insurance policy. The practical rule is to walk into the supermarket with a written list even for a three day shop, because the real risk is not forgetting something, it is buying more than the boat will take.
3.Order Ahead Or Shop On Arrival
Two Approaches And What Each One Costs You
There are two ways to do the first load, and they trade the same thing against each other: time versus control.
Ordering ahead means the boat is stocked when you step aboard. Many operators sell a provisioning pack covering cooking basics, a first breakfast and enough snacks to reach a proper shop, and in most Mediterranean bases there are yacht supply firms that take an online order and deliver it to the passerelle at an agreed hour. You lose some choice and you pay a little more, but you sail on the first afternoon rather than queuing.
Shopping on arrival costs you two or three hours and gives you exactly what your crew eats, usually cheaper. It works well where the base has a supermarket in walking distance. Our guide to provisioning a yacht charter in Croatia sets out how that plays out from Split, Trogir and Dubrovnik, including delivery straight to the berth.
4.Provisioning With A Skipper Or Hostess
Extra Mouths And Who Does The Shopping
Adding a skipper does not change the boat, but it does change the shopping. A skipper is aboard for every meal, so count them in your numbers from the start. They are also the most useful person in the supermarket: they know which shop near the base is actually worth the walk and what the next three anchorages will and will not have.
A hostess changes it more. Where you have a host or cook aboard, they will usually build the list with you from a preference form filled in before you arrive, then do the shopping themselves. Your job becomes describing what your crew likes rather than pushing a trolley.
On fully crewed yachts, where a skipper and a cook run the week around you, food, fuel and berthing are normally handled through an advanced provisioning allowance. That is a float you pay up front, which the crew spend on your behalf and account for line by line at the end of the week.
5.What To Load At The Base
Water, Staples And The Boring Things Nobody Remembers
The base shop is where you buy heavy, bulky and boring. It is the one time in the week you have a trolley and a short walk to the boat rather than a dinghy and a hill.
Water first. Allow around a litre and a half per person per day for drinking, plus more for cooking, and buy it in large bottles rather than small ones. In hot weather and after a day of sailing, crews get through more than they plan for, and it is the one thing you never want to be short of.
Then the things nobody puts on a list until they are missing: bin bags, washing up liquid, kitchen roll, toilet roll, antibacterial spray, matches, foil, shampoo. Add ambient snacks that need no fridge and no cooking, crisps, biscuits, nuts and dried fruit, because those are what actually get eaten under way. Load your drinks here too, alcoholic and otherwise, since they are heavy and cost more from a quayside kiosk.
6.Fresh Food And Eating Ashore
What Keeps, What Spoils And Where Dinner Happens
Weight your provisioning towards breakfast and lunch. Most crews eat dinner ashore more often than they intend to, because you arrive somewhere at six in the evening with a taverna forty metres away, and cooking stops being the appealing option.
Buy fresh little and often. Bread, leaves, soft fruit and anything already cut are finished within a day or two in a warm galley, and buying bread each morning from a village bakery is one of the better parts of the week rather than a chore. Tomatoes, citrus, hard cheese, cured meat, eggs, onions and root vegetables all hold up well, and between them they cover most lunches without needing the fridge at all.
Local markets are worth planning a stop around rather than treating as a bonus. Our guide to provisioning in Greece goes into what to look for island by island, and the same instinct works anywhere: buy what the shop is obviously good at.
Planning a charter and want the food, fuel and berthing costed properly rather than guessed at? Tell us who is sailing and roughly when, and we will come back with the honest all in cost of the week.
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Christopher Lait
Chris founded Drake Academy, a sailing company that provides leadership training to businesses. Now the CEO of SailChecker.com you will find him handling many of your enquiries as he attempts to drive SailChecker.com forward as the company of choice for yacht charter and sailing by focusing on quality advice and great customer service.
