Preparing the boat and the route
- Prepare the boat for a long passage: rig and sails, self-steering, ground tackle, and redundancy in navigation, power, water and steering.
- Plan the route by season and routeing charts, with a realistic daily run and an honest estimate of the passage time.
- Carry celestial-navigation capability and paper charts as an independent backup to the electronics.
- Plan the watch system and the crew's rest for a passage measured in weeks, not days.
Provisioning with a margin
Ocean provisioning is planned around the estimated passage time with a generous margin for calms, gear failure and diversion. Water is the critical stores item — carried in more than one tank or container, with a reserve that is never touched for routine use, and ideally a means of making or catching more. Food is planned for the number aboard and the days at sea plus a reserve, chosen to keep without refrigeration. Fuel is for charging and manoeuvring, not propulsion across the ocean, so it too is budgeted with the whole passage in mind.
NOTE — Redundancy is the theme of ocean preparation Days from help, everything critical needs a backup: two ways to navigate, two ways to steer, more than one water supply, and spares for the failures you can foresee. Plan the passage assuming something will break.
WARNING — Water is the stores item that matters most Run low on food and the crew is hungry; run out of water and the passage becomes an emergency. Carry water in more than one container, keep an untouchable reserve, and have a way to make or catch more.