After publishing the last building reports of the Omega 42 I received some comments and inquiries by you, my dear readers, regarding the details of my galley-setup in the boat. Some of you guys were keen on getting to know how I utilize the spirits burner which replaces the full liquefied gas kitchen equipment and installation on my yacht, others commented that installing the stove along the longitudinal boat axis would render any gimbal useless, as it wouldn´t counter the boat´s heeling.

So, first of all: Thanks to you guys for reading all my stories, for getting so deep into that stuff and for really caring! This means a lot to me and I appreciate every single comment or email you send me! By the way, if you don´t want to miss any new article – because I publish roughly every three days – you may just simply subscribe to the monthly newsletter and voilá, receive an email with all 10 stories at the end of the month. That being cleared, let´s dive into the Omega 42 galley …

The fun and the challenges of cooking on a sailboat

I am a keen chef de cuisine far longer than I am sailing. I started preparing meals and cook for my whole family at the age of 9 or so. Simple dishes like Pizza or Pasta paved the way for having fun in the kitchen and find deep satisfaction in cooking, trying out new recipes and work with unknown or high-grade ingredients. For me, cooking is an essential part of a deep sailing experience. On the other hand, nutrition and filling up your exhausted energy depots is paramount for any sailor: We all know that when real hunger hits, you can be in big trouble. In this, any boat´s galley is a central and integral part of any boat.

I love cooking aboard!

The challenges of cooking offshore are plentiful. First of all, especially when a new cruise starts, the risk of suffering from sea sickness. I can say at least for myself, that with a certain “rougher” sea state I try to remain up on deck for the first day or so, because immediately going down to prepare meals is a killer. I got educated on this matter pretty hard during our Atlantic Ocean experience. Secondly, even without sea sickness, the constant movement of the boat and heeling makes every single step of cooking a strenuous undertaking. Not to mention the hazards of burning yourself from the stove´s fires or spills of boiling water. In essence: You must eat on the one hand – but you try to cook as less as possible on the other.

The (single one) downside of the Origo 3000 burner

If you follow my adventure of building the iconic Omega 42 you know that the principle motto of my boat is simplicity. (Saying this I suddenly have the idea that this would also be a great name for the yacht. Well anyway …) Everything shall be as simple as possible. That´s why I reduced the electronic equipment to a minimum and substituted the chart plotter with the Orca-tablet, that is why I reduced the whole toilet-system to a beautiful, yet simple no-mix WC and even opted for the simplest joinery-solutions possible. Regarding the galley,  instead of liquefied gas installations I went for the classy, simple spirits burner.

Do I need a gimbal?

I´ve tested this stove and it is really only slightly slower in bringing stuff to a boil than my Ceran stove at home. It´s a brilliantly simple construction and the myth of constant spirit-odors is … well, a myth. But it has one downside. One really big drawback: Because of the fact that this stove has no oven underneath, you need to install gimbals which are “above” the stove. These things look … pretty ugly:

“High” gimbals for the Origo 3000.

Again, I did not ever use an over aboard any sailing yacht I was on. But, having one lowers the center of gravity of the stove so that it can be hung into simple hinges – flush with your galley´s worktop. But my Origo 3000 stove does not have a low center of gravity so it must become one itself with the hinges of the gimbal above it. You can see you this looks like in the picture below, the new First 30 has a gas-stove burner only with “high” gimbals. The solved it pretty nicely to be honest, but still, I cannot imagine this solution in my boat:

This is how Beneteau solved it

And even if we´d found a nice way to do it, there´s still the problem with the mounting position. As my stove is installed facing the longitudinal axis of the yacht, even a gimballed version would be useless in heeling. So what shall we do? The good thing is, the guys working there in shed are not only fine boatbuilding craftsmen but skillful sailors with a lot of experience themselves. And indeed, we have a solution now.

The solution: No gimbal at all!

We´ve decided that cooking aboard my ALPHA is only possible when the boat is not heeling, hence, not sailing. Simple as that. This way, we don´t need a gimbal to counter-balance the otherwise tilted oven. Think about it: How often do you really cook a full meal when seriously sailing? Yes, sure, transversing the Atlantic Ocean or on a longhaul leg during a cruise, but honestly: Will this ever happen for me and ALPHA? So, what´s the solution?

Clean worktop: Chopping board insert

First of all, the picture above shows the “underway” setting of my galley: Which is no stove at all visible. The stove is safely stored away in a compartment under the Bamboo worktop. In its place – currently just a simple offcut wooden placeholder – will be a Bamboo chopping board (which is a nice clever little idea in itself). This way everything is stored away, nice and neatly and the galley looks just awesome. Now we arrive in a marina or at an anchorage: Let´s prepare dinner!

Stove is stowed away

No problem: I open the compartment and take out the stove. As you can see in both the picture above and below, the carpenters have milled a recess into the worktop that fits exactly the size of the stove. Another “anchor”-recess at the top makes sure that, once placed inside, it cannot slip or get out of place. It sits in there firmly so that I guess it still can be used when underway motoring with no healing as well.

Milled recesses for the stove/chopping board

Once cooking is done, I just wait until the stove has cooled down and put it away in its compartment. Down inside the compartment it is placed as well into a tight fitting hold so that it wont fly around underneath the worktop when sailing in rough waters. This is a very clever and neat solution: No ugly gimbal needed (that wouldn´t help anyway) and we keep a nice coherent look of the whole galley. Yes, you might think now, that sounds all so nice, but …

But … how do you prepare hot stuff when sailing?

Here´s the cool part. I´ve analyzed my articles about cooking aboard, any article I wrote on NO FRILLS SAILING.com and also searched my social profiles for pictures: Almost all – I repeat – almost all of them show food being prepared while stationary! At anchor or in a harbor. I am (sadly) not sailing around the world nor do I sail multi-day legs here in the Baltic Sea. Mostly it´s a new marina every evening. If sailing longer, it´s often just an overnighter. This means, I only need to fire up the stove for coffee or tea.

Honestly: I only need coffee!

I admit, I drink a lot hot stuff when sailing and so preparing hot or boiling water is really a precondition. I know that from a nutritional standpoint those convenient ready-made dry foods like mashed potatoes or soup snacks are a no-go health-wise, but those have saved me in a number of cold, hungry night shifts. The point is: I only need hot water. This means, I just need one single flame. So what makes water boil in a matter of a few seconds? Tadaaaa: The Jetboil! I just love this thing – and have already ordered a new one for ALPHA. Only thing I need is a gimbal for the Jetboil.

Perfect single flame solution: Jetboil + gimbal

There are quite a few companies or small businesses offering gimbals for the Jetboil or other fast single flame cooking systems. I have seen one of them myself on a boat recently, made from Titan. By I don´t like the looks of all of these. Besides, trusting the 3D-printed gimbals? I don´t know. The only real cool system I know is the one used by Seascape in the First 24 and 27 SE, one of which I have owned and sailed for 3 years. This gimbal works great, is safe and again – very simple. So I ordered it as well.

Everything is possible

And this is the cooking solution for ALPHAs galley that some of you guys have asked me about: As I am utilizing the full potential of a multi-burner stove for preparing hot meals only in marinas or at anchor anyway, the store-away solution works perfectly for me! Underway, as this last picture shows, I am more of a sandwich guy preferring simple, easy and quick to prepare food. When hunger strikes me or I really need something warm, I can utilize the Jetboil any time thanks to Seascape´s gimbal. Tea, coffee and even hot soups are no problem. The whole Peloton of racing yachts and IMOCA-skippers eats that way …

Underway? Sandwich-time!

Isn´t this the beauty of custom one-off or semi-custom boatbuilding? You can tailor the boat´s equipment and setup completely free from any price-lists or options preset by a shipyard. Just think of any item and look for a solution that suits you, not an anonymous average of customers. In this, your perfect Omega 42 (which you really can have, just order one yourself 🙂 may look completely different from mine. The nice thing is, you can also put in or let out what you want. With this cleared up now, what about a fridge for my boat …?

 

Want to read more? Here are some affiliated articles of interest:

All Omega 42 building reports

I bring one dedicated recipe from every sailing trip: Here´s the collection

Veggie Sailing – a meatless cruising experiment