Bread rolls with cold cuts2× in the plan
The early riser gets the rolls from the bakery in the harbour.
- 16 pcsBread rolls
- 250 gButter
- 400 gCheese
- 300 gCold cuts
- 1 jarJam
- 1 jarChocolate spread
- 4 pcsTomatoes
- 1 pcCucumber
- 8 pcsEggs
Sailing meal plan: one week, eight people
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Seven breakfasts, six lunches under way, four dinners from the galley and three in a restaurant. Here is the whole plan to print, with amounts for eight people. Plus what a boat galley can do, who cooks when, and how to adapt the plan for vegetarians and allergies.
The weekly plan to print
Saturday to Saturday, as is usual in Croatia and Greece: take over the boat in the afternoon, hand it back in the morning. It is counted the way Crewsy counts. One breakfast per day on board, one lunch per day except the arrival day, one dinner per day except the nights out.
| Day | Breakfast | Lunch under way | Dinner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Day 1 · SatArrival | travelling to the base | travelling to the base | Restaurantin the marina, after the big shop |
| Day 2 · Sun | Bread rolls with cold cuts | Wraps | Spaghetti with mushroom cream sauceCooking team 1 |
| Day 3 · Mon | Muesli with fruit and yoghurt | Pasta salad | Grilled vegetables with halloumi and couscousCooking team 2 |
| Day 4 · Tue | Scrambled eggs with bread | Tomato and mozzarella with baguette | Restaurantharbour day: top up water, bread and fruit |
| Day 5 · Wed | Muesli with fruit and yoghurt | Greek salad with flatbread | Red Thai curry with vegetablesCooking team 3 |
| Day 6 · Thu | Pancakes | Hummus platter with vegetables | Chili sin carne with riceCooking team 4 |
| Day 7 · Fri | Muesli with fruit and yoghurt | Pasta salad | Restaurantback at the base, boat refuelled |
| Day 8 · SatCheck-out | Bread rolls with cold cuts | travelling home | travelling home |
7 breakfasts, 6 lunches, 4 dinners on board, 3 in a restaurant.
In reserve, in case the taverna is full: Spaghetti aglio e olio. Spaghetti, garlic and parmesan keep all week.
Every dish comes from the Crewsy template; the amounts below are for 8 people.
The dishes with amounts for eight
Amounts for one meal for eight people. If a dish appears twice in the plan, buy it twice. Salt, oil and spices are listed so the recipe is complete: they count as galley staples and belong on the shared packing list, not the shopping list.
Breakfast
Muesli with fruit and yoghurt3× in the plan
- 500 gRolled oats
- 3 LMilk
- 1 kgYoghurt
- 8 pcsBananas
- 8 pcsApples
- 1 jarHoney
- 200 gNuts
Scrambled eggs with bread
- 16 pcsEggs
- 200 mlMilk
- 50 gButter
- 1 bunchChives
- 2 pcsBread
- 6 pcsTomatoes
- Salt (from the galley staples)
- Pepper (from the galley staples)
Pancakes
- 500 gFlour
- 6 pcsEggs
- 1 LMilk
- 1 packBaking powder
- 100 gSugar
- 1 bottleMaple syrup
- 4 pcsBananas
- 100 gButter
Lunch
Wraps
Everyone rolls their own. Works without chicken, too.
- 16 pcsTortilla wraps
- 800 gChicken breast
- 1 pcLettuce
- 4 pcsTomatoes
- 1 pcCucumber
- 1 tinSweetcorn
- 1 tinKidney beans
- 300 gGrated cheese
- 1 jarSalsa
- 400 gCrème fraîche
- 3 pcsAvocado
Pasta salad2× in the plan
Keeps two days in the fridge. Good for a day under sail.
- 1 kgFusilli
- 2 packsRocket
- 400 gFeta
- 1 jarBlack olives
- 1 jarSun-dried tomatoes
- 500 gCherry tomatoes
- 1 jarPesto
- 100 gPine nuts
- 2 pcsLemon
- Olive oil (from the galley staples)
Tomato and mozzarella with baguette
- 8 pcsTomatoes
- 4 packsMozzarella
- 1 bunchBasil
- 3 pcsBaguette
- Balsamic vinegar (from the galley staples)
- Olive oil (from the galley staples)
Greek salad with flatbread
- 2 pcsCucumber
- 8 pcsTomatoes
- 2 pcsRed onions
- 400 gFeta
- 1 jarKalamata olives
- 4 pcsFlatbread
- Olive oil (from the galley staples)
- Oregano (from the galley staples)
Hummus platter with vegetables
- 3 packsHummus
- 4 pcsFlatbread
- 500 gCarrots
- 1 pcCucumber
- 3 pcsPeppers
- 500 gCherry tomatoes
Dinner
Spaghetti with mushroom cream sauce
- 1 kgSpaghetti
- 750 gMushrooms
- 2 pcsOnions
- 1 pcGarlic
- 600 mlCream
- 150 gParmesan
- 1 bunchParsley
- Salt (from the galley staples)
- Pepper (from the galley staples)
Grilled vegetables with halloumi and couscous
For the stern grill. Works just as well in a pan.
- 4 packsHalloumi
- 600 gCouscous
- 3 pcsCourgettes
- 4 pcsPeppers
- 2 pcsAubergine
- 3 pcsRed onions
- 2 pcsLemon
- 1 bunchMint
- Olive oil (from the galley staples)
Red Thai curry with vegetables
- 800 gRice
- 3 tinsCoconut milk
- 1 jarRed curry paste
- 3 pcsPeppers
- 2 pcsCourgettes
- 500 gCarrots
- 1 pcBroccoli
- 2 packsTofu
- 2 pcsLime
- 1 bunchCoriander
- Soy sauce (from the galley staples)
Chili sin carne with rice
One pot, no fridge needed. Everything from tins.
- 800 gRice
- 3 tinsKidney beans
- 2 tinsSweetcorn
- 3 tinsChopped tomatoes
- 3 pcsOnions
- 1 pcGarlic
- 3 pcsPeppers
- 1 pcTomato purée
- 400 gSour cream
- 200 gGrated cheese
- Chilli powder (from the galley staples)
- Cumin (from the galley staples)
Reserve
Spaghetti aglio e olio
The emergency dinner: five ingredients, twenty minutes.
- 1 kgSpaghetti
- 2 pcsGarlic
- 1 bunchParsley
- 150 gParmesan
- Chilli flakes (from the galley staples)
- Olive oil (from the galley staples)
The boat galley in numbers
The galley of a charter yacht is a kitchen for two that has to feed eight. These figures come from spec sheets and equipment lists of common charter boats. What your boat has is on the charter company's list.
- Stove
- Gas, two or three burners, with an oven underneath. On monohulls such as Bavaria or Dufour it is gimballed and stays level when the boat heels. Catamarans such as the Lagoon 42 hardly heel; there the stove is fixed, usually with three burners.
- Gas
- One bottle is connected, a second one should be on board as a spare. At check-in, make sure the spare is full and have someone show you where the gas valve is. Turn it off after cooking.
- Fridge
- On many monohulls a top-loading cool box, on newer boats drawers. It runs off the house battery, which is charged mainly by the engine and shore power. Many skippers switch it off under sail and on while motoring.
- Water
- Depending on the boat, 300 to 800 litres in the tank: Lagoon 42 300 to 600 l, Dufour 430 about 430 l, Bavaria C46 554 to 798 l. With 500 litres and eight people that leaves just over 60 litres each until the next harbour, showers and washing-up included.
Cooking with two burners and little water
- No dish in the plan needs more than two burners at once: one pot for rice, pasta or couscous, one pan for the sauce.
- Pasta cooks in half the usual water if you stir more often. Five litres are then enough for 1 kg of spaghetti, and less water boils faster, which saves gas.
- At anchor in clear water, pre-rinse with seawater and rinse again with fresh water. Never in the harbour basin.
- The oven is small and heats up the cabin. Good for baked potatoes and for crisping yesterday's bread, but in high summer not much more.
- There are plates for every berth, but often no sharp knife. Bring one from home, with a sheath.
What to eat first
The cool box is small, and below deck it easily gets above 30 °C in summer. That is why the plan runs in this order: fresh food first, tins and dry goods last.
Days 1 to 3
Chicken, mince and fish on the day you buy them or the day after. Mushrooms, cream, rocket, lettuce, avocado, mozzarella, berries.
Days 3 to 5
Tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, courgettes and aubergine. Feta in brine, halloumi, cheese in a block, yoghurt.
From day 5
Potatoes, onions, garlic, carrots, apples, lemons. Plus everything in tins and bags: beans, sweetcorn, coconut milk, chopped tomatoes, lentils, rice, pasta, UHT milk.
In every harbour
Buy fresh bread, fruit and salad, and fish only from that day's market. Pick up ice or ice packs if the cool box can't keep up.
Cooking in a seaway
- On the windy day, swap dinner for the chili: one pot, nearly everything from tins, only onions and peppers to chop.
- Tighten the pot clamps on the stove if the boat has them, and never fill pots more than halfway.
- Long trousers, not swim shorts. Standing at a swinging stove puts boiling water at hip height.
- Anyone seasick doesn't cook below deck. Their team swaps the evening with the next day's team.
- Prepare lunch in the harbour: pasta salad the evening before, vegetables cut up in lidded tubs. Under sail you only hand it out.
- Chili and curry in mugs rather than on plates. A mug doesn't slide away in a rolling cockpit.
Cooking teams: two people every night
Eight people, four dinners on board: everyone cooks exactly once, always in pairs. The teams are fixed before the shopping, because each team cooks its own dish and needs its own ingredients.
- Assign the teams before you arrive, not on the first evening. Whoever knows they cook on Wednesday reads the recipe at home.
- Whoever doesn't cook washes up. A simple rule: the next evening's team does the dishes.
- Breakfast is made by whoever wakes up first. The early riser fetches the rolls from the bakery in the harbour.
- Lunch has no team. Whoever isn't at the helm makes it.
- Don't put couples in the same team. Cooking with someone new means you know one more person on board afterwards.
In Crewsy you create the cooking teams, say Team Port and Team Starboard, and assign one to each dinner. The meal plan keeps count of how many breakfasts, lunches and dinners are still missing and which dinner has no team yet. You enter the nights out as a number; they drop out of the count.
The 18 dishes of the Crewsy template, including every dish in this plan, are added via “Use template”, all of them or one by one. The shopping list scales the amounts from 8 people to your crew size, adds up identical ingredients and sorts everything by aisle.
Vegetarian, vegan, allergies: adapting the plan
The plan is almost vegetarian. The only meat is the cold cuts with the bread rolls and the chicken in the wraps.
Vegetarian
Swap the cold cuts for a second cheese or hummus, fill the wraps with beans and sweetcorn instead of chicken. Red curry paste often contains shrimp paste: read the label.
Vegan
Oat milk and soy yoghurt for the muesli, oat cream in the mushroom sauce, leave out the parmesan. Swap halloumi for tinned chickpeas, scrambled eggs for fried tofu. Without sour cream and cheese the chili is already vegan.
Gluten-free
Rice instead of couscous, gluten-free pasta, corn tortillas instead of wraps. Bring gluten-free bread from home; don't count on finding it on the island.
Nuts
Nuts are in the muesli, the chocolate spread and, as pine nuts, the pasta salad, and often in the pesto too. Drop these ingredients and read the label on pesto, muesli and biscuits.
Lactose
Milk, yoghurt and cream are available lactose-free. Parmesan is practically lactose-free because of its long ageing.
In the galley
Don't change the whole plan for one person. Take their portion out first, before cheese or cream go into the pot, and use a separate spoon. In a tight galley, traces end up in the wrong pot quickly.
In Crewsy you write this in the dish's note, for example “vegan” or “no nuts”. The note appears right next to the dish in the meal plan.
A reminder 14 days before your trip
Two weeks before departure is the right time for provisions, packing and the check-in list. Enter when you cast off. 14 days before, an email arrives with the lists. One email, then the address is deleted.
Use the plan in Crewsy
Take the dishes from the template, assign cooking teams, get the shopping list. Free for 14 days, no payment details needed.