What Happens If You Run Out of Food on a Sailboat?

Not a bad question. I don’t blame you for asking at all. It’s a genuine risk.

What if we run out of food? Like, seriously, what would happen? Well, thankfully, we’ve never been in this position before, and that’s all thanks to crazy amounts of preparation. But today, I’d like to run through that preparation — everything we do to make sure we don’t run out of food — as well as the times it’s come close and what we would have to do if we ran out.

Curious? Let’s get into it.

Preparation: The Key to Success

Right, as I mentioned, we do everything we can to ensure we won’t run out of food! What does that look like?

Shelf-stable food. This is what makes the difference. What you have to understand is that when you live on a boat, you DO NOT have access to stores 24/7 at all. Oftentimes, you’re in a remote atoll with no one and nothing but coconuts and crabs. Or at sea, where there is actually nothing but ocean for miles and miles in every direction.

This is where shelf-stable food is really great:

Tinned food: Tuna, beans, veggies, etc. Pretty much anything can be tinned or canned and preserved. This is amazing because we can take these tins, stow them under a couch or in a locker, and then pull them out when our fresh food starts to run out…

Dry goods: Pasta, rice, flour, oats, etc. These are what we call ‘staples’ on board Happy Days — things we eat every day and couldn’t really live without. They also last for a very long time. I’m pretty sure we still have some lentils that have done an entire circumnavigation with us (that’s pretty gross, actually, but they’d probably still taste good).

With these things combined, I think we’ve done the maths, and with the amount we keep on board at all times, we could last at least six months with all six of us. It wouldn’t be a great diet — rice and beans, likely — but we could survive.

But, on top of shelf-stable food, we also restock with fresh and frozen food whenever we can. If we’re near stores, we’ll probably go once a week and top up with lettuce and tomatoes. If we’re not, we’ll get as much fresh food as we can that will last, and then eat through it.

All this adds up to always having quite a lot of food on board.

Food Supplies for Long Ocean Passages

Okay, I want to address passages really fast — and not the day hops, but the week-long or longer, full-blown ocean crossings.

When you think of a sailboat running out of food, you think: middle of the ocean, bobbing along slowly, and opening the last tin of beans.

While this could possibly become a reality, it’s also kind of laughable because any experienced sailor will not set out to sea without enough supplies to last at least three times as long as the passage is likely to take.

For us, before any major passage, we’ll buy as much fresh food as we can store and eat before it turns, and we’ll top up our shelf-stable food stores (especially peanut butter — that would be really tragic).

Then you have the elephant in the room: the Pacific Ocean. This is the biggest stretch of open ocean we’ve crossed without stopping. The first time, it took us 25 days. The second? Our rudder snapped, and it took us 28.

Imagine if we had calculated exactly for 25 days and thought we’d be okay! We’d have run out of food for sure.

This is why I will stress once again that the key is preparation.

Have enough food, calculate it, then double or triple what you think you will need. You never want to find yourself in that ‘bobbing and opening the last can of beans’ situation.

What If There’s an Emergency?

Let me start this section by saying I hope we never end up in a situation like this, and I hope you don’t either.

But… and yes, there is always a but… if your boat goes down or you have to abandon ship, then the reality of running out of food becomes so real, so fast. You HAVE to be prepared here as well.

How do we do our best to be prepared? We have a life raft stocked with rationed food. We also have a grab bag stocked with rationed food, fishing line and hooks, and a few other devices to catch food.

What we also have is as many precautions as possible to, one, make sure it never comes to abandoning ship, and two, make sure we are rescued as quickly as possible if it does happen.

Phew, that was heavy. Shall we wind it up with a couple of funny stories?

Things We Have Run Out Of

Yep, we’ve totally run out of food we like before! I mentioned peanut butter earlier — we’ve run out of that and attempted to blend some peanuts up.

Other things that we get sad about running out of:

• Chocolate.
• Honey!
• Bananas.
• Eggs.
• Flour — no sourdough! Can’t do it.
• Cheese.
• Coffee.

Clearly, all very first-world problems, but it is sad when you run out of them. So, we always try to have heaps of all of those things.

So, What Happens If We Run Out of Food?

What if we run out of food? Well, we try not to put ourselves in that position, and we have an emergency plan if it were to happen.

The main thing I’d like you to take out of this is that cruisers tend to always be prepared enough that they do not run out of food.

But I do think it’s great and kinda cute that we can still wonder enough to create the image of a sailboat surrounded by ocean, bobbing along slowly while opening their last can of beans. Let’s keep that childlike curiosity; it’s good for us.

Oh, and if you’re wondering how we get water, go check out this blog post where we explain exactly how it works.

I would love to know what other things you’re curious about, or if you’ve ever come close to running out of food! Let us know in the comments — the kids are always keen to hear stories.