Skippers often sail away for several weeks and even for several months sometimes, depending on the nature of the race. Beyond the physical challenge that ocean racing represents, skippers face another challenge: How to meet their nutritional needs aboard a sailboat? This is especially true since a racing boat has the particularity of not being designed to accommodate a refrigerator.
In this article, we will explain how sailors meet their energy needs bearing in mind the constraints related to ocean racing.
How to combine boat performance and nutrition?
In order to store and preserve foodstuffs, such as meat, vegetables or ready-made meals, a refrigerator seems to be essential. However, such an additional equipment would mean that the boat would sustain the weight of the refrigerator as well as the weight of the stored food. And depending on the number of days and meals required at sea, the weight of food can easily reach several hundreds of kilos. Weight being the sworn enemy of the boat’s performance, it is necessary to have the lightest possible sailboat so that to optimize its speed.
Add to this another issue related to physical performance which requires being able to consume all the necessary nutrients. Racing at sea requires a great deal of preparation since the skipper’s energy consumption is much greater at sea than on land. For example, during single-handed races, such as the Vendée Globe, the skipper‘s energy consumption is estimated at 4000 kilocalories per day. It is important to know as well that if the sailor is racing in cold areas, his energy needs will double compared to his needs on land.
In addition to being an enhancement to physical performance, meals are also good for the skippers’ morale. When they are racing on their own for several days, weeks or months, “pleasure” foods become essential to keep their spirits up!
This raises the following question: how can sailors meet their nutritional needs in an environment where the weight and bulk of food must be reduced?
The benefits of freeze-drying in ocean racing
Given its indispensable nature, provisioning is therefore an element that must be anticipated in order to have sufficient resources for the entire duration of the race. To meet this dual challenge, namely to combine nutrition without increasing the boat’s weight, freeze-drying is an appropriate solution.
The freeze-drying of food, carried out in three stages, consists in freezing the food and then extracting the water from it through two levels of drying. Thus, the first step is to freeze the food. Then, the second step, called “sublimation”, consists in transforming the water contained in the food into ice, then the latter into gas. The third step, called “desiccation”, consists in removing water molecules trapped on the surface of dried food. Thus, at the end of these three steps, food is said to be “freeze-dried” and contains only 1 to 2% of water. This reduces considerably the weight of food and is one of the reasons why freeze-dried foods are particularly popular with sailors.
Freeze-dried meals are easy to store
Thanks to their packaging – often in individual bags – freeze-dried meals and foods are easy to store since they do not take up space. Moreover, due to the freeze-drying process, they are much lighter than in their original state.
Freeze-dried meals save time
Sailors know how precious their time is to stay focused on the race. With freeze-dried meals, there is no need to wash dishes or spend time in the kitchen. The only equipment they need? A watermaker. The use of the latter will make it possible to use sea water, to filter it and to treat it so that it can become drinkable. Once the sea water is desalinated, skippers will be able to rehydrate their freeze-dried meals with cold water – for smoothies for example. This rehydration process could also be done with water previously heated in a kettle for hot meals – such as for mashed potatoes or simmered meals.
Freeze-dried meals can be stored for a long time
Thanks to the freeze-drying process, the shelf life of freeze-dried meals or food is significantly extended. In addition to improving the preservation of food, freeze-drying preserves all the taste and nutritional qualities of the product.
