Food adventures in the Atlantic

How can food be stored in a boat in such a way that space is utilised efficiently without making the boat excessively heavy? How can a rower ensure that the food transported will provide all of the nutrients that he or she will need for weeks of solitary rowing?

Providing meal planning advice and support to ocean rowers has become the speciality of Frenchman Mathieu Lainé.

An active rower, Lainé obtained a bachelor’s degree in food science and food safety and worked for several years in the food industry, designing high-end recipes for famous French brands such as Fauchon, Lenôtre or the Flo Group.

Moving on to a second professional experience, Lainé became familiar with the rigours of the pharmaceutical industry. For the past 14 years he has worked on the development and production of dietary products and food supplements, mainly for sports practitioners. During this time he worked closely with doctors and dieticians based on detailed specifications.

According to Lainé, successfully crossing an ocean is based on three pillars: support (boat and oars), engine (the rower who is prepared physically as well as mentally), and fuel (food and water). “Without fuel in enough quantity and quality, the engine will not work,” says Lainé. “Or worse still, it could become dangerous for the health and the safety of the rower.”

So, how does Lainé go about deciding the amount of fuel that a rower will need? To start off, he determines a rower’s resting metabolic rate (RMR). Then the number of kilo calories burned per hour of rowing is established, based on the rower’s heart rate, the gender, age, size and weight while also taking external conditions into consideration (such as hot/cold or wet/dry weather).

Typically, a female rowing 10 hours per day will burn around 4,000 kcal, compared to 2,000 kcal burned by a woman with an office job. A male rowing for about 10 hours in extremely cold conditions is likely to burn around 6,500 kcal per day – two-and-a-half times the amount burned by a man with an office job.

An average of 70kg to 80kg of food is typically boarded, says Lainé, for an Atlantic Ocean crossing. This represents about 5,000 kcal per day for an estimated duration of 50 days. As a precaution, 20 per cent more food should be packed as a precaution.

Food supplies, says Lainé, are chosen to provide the best energy-to-weight ratio. Indeed, each rower transports his own provisions and each extra kilogram, even each additional gram, can represent a disadvantage. Since water contains no calories and represents considerable weight, stored foods should contain as little of it as possible. Dried foods such as lentils, beans, rice and pasta are good examples. Ready-made freeze-dried dishes are another.

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To reduce the amount of food weight, a lot of the foods also need to be re-packaged before the crossing to remove any useless packaging weight. Air-tight and resistant plastic bags are usually the alternative used.

For ocean rower Christophe Letendre who rowed the Atlantic and worked with Lainé, it was a challenge during the preparation “to weigh each food to the nearest gram and then vacuum it.” Letendre vacuumed such foods as cereal, pasta, lentils, quinoa, semolina, dried fruit, dried ham, cheese and toasted bread.

Not only does the weight of food need to be measured, but so does the energy source needed to prepare it – whether gas, alcohol or petrol. And to reduce the amount of energy that needs to be transported a few simple tricks can be resorted to. When preparing ingredients such as rice, pasta or beans, for example, less energy can be consumed than would be used at home if the ingredients are soaked beforehand and if the heat is turned off as soon as the water reaches boiling point and the ingredients are then left to soak and puff up in the warm water.

But foods high in calories and low in weight are not the only criteria for selection. The meals also need to provide well-balanced nutrition, be easy to digest and tasty. “It should not be forgotten that meals punctuate an ocean rower’s day and that oftentimes they represent the only comforting moments of each day.”

Lainé refers to simple solutions that can be used to improve the flavour of meals and make them more enjoyable. Using spices and herbs is one of them. Cumin and curry and dried herbs such as basil and parsley take little space and the weight they represent is negligible. Dried tomatoes and mushrooms as well as freeze-dried garlic and onions are also tasty and convenient. Stock cubes can be transported in a compact way and also add fatty content to a dish.

For Letendre, his meals were a “moment of relaxation and pleasure after the physical exertion.”

The typical proportions of energy sources that Lainé recommends are: 60-70 per cent carbohydrates, 15-25 per cent fats, and 12-15 per cent protein. Letendre followed these proportions quite systematically, while fellow ocean rower Mathieu Bonnier included a lot more protein in his diet.

Bonnier did a solo Atlantic crossing and, in addition, crossed the arctic Baffin Bay in polar temperatures one year later. Unlike other rowers, Bonnier ate few freeze-dried foods as he found them overly spicy, too low in calories and is also of the opinion that the protein they provide is of bad quality. “For a three-day hiking excursion they are fine,” says Bonnier, but not for a row lasting longer than 40 days. “I was one of the only rowers who lost only three kilos during the Atlantic crossing,” he says. “Those who ate freeze-dried foods lost up to 20 kg. Mathieu [Lainé] balanced up my rations, basing them on complex sugars, but also higher amounts of protein. I ate a lot of dried meat every day.”

Bonnier and his wife prepared most of his food in advance,  based on the nutritional requirements indicated by Lainé. Not only did they do this for dietary reasons, but also to make sure his meals were enjoyable. The Bonniers used two machines, one for vacuuming and the other for dehydrating and drying food.

Yes, at sea it did take Bonnier longer than the standard 15 minutes that would have been required for preparing a meal from a freeze-dried pack, but Bonnier saw it as a break from rowing. “Preparing my food was an interesting procedure, more interesting than simply boiling water and pouring it into a bag,” he says.

For fat intake, Bonnier relied essentially on olive oil and a daily consumption of 150g of cheese. For conservation purposes “the cheese had to be very dry,” he says. He also mixed in the dehydrated fruits and vegetables.

During his Baffin Bay crossing in the first part of his trip he lost a lot of time due to weather conditions and a lot of body weight. But during the second part, with milder weather conditions and the slightly sweetened whole wheat bread that the Inuit provided him with, he did not lose a gram for the rest of his journey. Lainé had also provided Bonnier with a bread recipe based on sea water, yeast and flour. “I am a bread fanatic,” says Bonnier. “I was able to make my own bread in my boat in 20 minutes and eat fresh bread.”

Letendre’s nutritional plan included more dried-freeze meals and his favourite foods were, among others, breakfast cereals, dried meat and blueberry yoghurt.

To ensure that variety is maintained and that nutritional balance is achieved, Lainé prepares a nutritional plan for the full duration of a rower’s excursion with daily predefined menus. “Meals should be packaged methodologically per day and per week of rowing to reduce the risk of random nibbling and snacking,” he says.

Lainé recommends having a meal every three hours, in order to reach the amount of recommended calorie intake. The rowers then adapted this schedule to their own needs. Bonnier would take two breakfasts, the first one at 5am and his larger meal at 2pm, while Letendre ate his first meal of the day at 8am.

Lainé estimates that the cost of food for a transatlantic crossing lasting between 50 and 60 days ranges from 1,000 Euros to 1,500 Euros.

Bonnier, for both of his crossings, had really good memories of his food experiences. “I was not at all stressed on my arrival and did not have any obsessions about foods that I absolutely wanted to eat. I had no food deficiencies,” says Bonnier.