Case Study - Rolex Middle Sea Race 2024
It all begins with an idea.
Lesser Yacht Supplies was born out of helping my fiancé prepare for the Rolex Middle Sea Race a few years ago. With responsibility for 2 crews of 8 young sailors it fell to him to prepare meals and shop for all the supplies for 5 plus days of racing. Cooking and freezing 80 portions of pasta and sauce in a small galley (albeit of a Swan) and trawling round the supermarkets of Malta in search of porridge cups and pot noodles was no preparation for skippering in the notoriously variable conditions around Sicily in the autumn.
His crews were lucky, experience of this and multiple other offshore races meant he knew exactly what was needed to keep his novice crew well fed and happy whilst maximising efficiency and minimising weight for a competitive campaign.
Others are not so fortunate. As the 1950s circumnavigator Annie Van De Wiele said, "the art of the sailor is to leave nothing to chance", and yet it often falls to the most junior or otherwise least useful crew member to do the victualling. One crew ended up with 10kgs of porridge oats for a 4 day race (it was jokingly suggested they might pour them onto the surface of the sea to ward off Orca attack). A Clipper crew stocked up on tins of sardines in Portugal which exploded in the lockers in the heat of the doldrums. Thousands are spent on professional kit and boat preparation but where are the professionals when it comes to one of the key factors in maintaining the morale and race fitness of the crew?
I was lucky enough to be asked to be that professional support for 2 boats in this year’s Rolex Middle Sea Race. One a semi-professional crew on a stripped out race boat, the other enthusiastic amateurs keen to put themselves and their beautiful boat through their paces but in a modicum of comfort. 2 very different briefs but the same principles – less stress, less waste: more flavour, more nutrition.
For the Eleva 42 and 8 crew I provided a full service – a mixture of freeze dried, fresh food, snacks and galley essentials for five days. I prepared them one frozen meal to re-heat on the first night (although given the forecast it was planned instead for a calmer 2nd evening in the Messina Straight). In the end they ate the Duck Cassoulet in the crew apartment in Valletta after a catastrophic back stay failure forced them to retire. The crew though pronounced the dish perfect for on the rail eating – a one pot, spoon only feast of tender duck, spicy Maltese sausage, green and cannellini beans, all bound in a sauce of meat juices and tomato thickened with toasted bread crumbs. Freeze-dried meals are difficult to obtain in Malta and other race start locations so all the other main meals and specialist essentials like isotonic drink tablets were loaded in the boat’s home port of Marseille. I then supplemented these with dry and fresh foods sourced locally – home mixed granolas and porridge, cup soups and noodles, wraps and fillings, high protein snacks, fruit and yoghurt sachets and of course home made flapjacks and brownies, fruit and a huge bag of M&Ms! Not being mired in race preparation I could bring freshly prepared sandwiches for the morning of the race; and for subsequent lunchtime alternatives, pasta salad and home made Calzone pizzas (vacuum packed to keep fresh and guaranteed not to drop mozzarella and tomato sauce on the deck).
For the Swan and its 12 corinthians I cooked and froze 5 one pot main meals – the Duck Cassoulet, Pork Goulash with Herb Dumplings, Thai Green Curry with Rice, Lamb Moussaka, and Macaroni with Maltese Gbejniet Cheese and Porcini Mushrooms. I knew from the start that one of the crew was lactose intolerant and had planned the menu accordingly (Greek Shepherds Pie not Moussaka, Arrabbiata not cheese sauce) and luckily when I received the call, “the skipper can’t eat wheat”, I was in the supermarket that stocks gluten free pasta and pizza dough!
The crews both set off fully provisioned with all supplies neatly stored and labelled. For the Eleva this meant total additional weight of less than 2kg per person per day providing at least 3500 calories at a cost significantly less than the ad hoc supply for previous races.
Job done for now, roll on the Fastnet, but there is still a huge job to be done in making victualling more environmentally as well as crew friendly. The aim of Lesser Yacht Supplies is to live up to its name – less waste, less packaging. I was horrified to see pictures of the food supply for a Vendee Globe competitor – far more plastic than protein. Ocean racers see the devastating effects of pollution at first hand but unless they want to make that choice between weevils in their ships biscuits they currently have no alternative but to accept the plastic waste associated with freeze dried and preserved foods. Lesser Yacht Supplies announces itself as the challenger of record.
