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2026-06-20 Guide Francois Harvey

Galley and provisioning: a skipper skill across RYA, IYT and Sail Canada

Whether you train with the RYA, IYT or Sail Canada, victualling and the galley are part of the cruising syllabus — the side that's easiest to underprepare. Here's how to practise it.

Cruising courses are remembered for boat handling, navigation and anchoring. But across the major schemes, feeding the crew — victualling, provisioning, the galley — is an explicit skipper responsibility. It's also the part candidates tend to prepare least.

Here's where it sits in three widely used cruising schemes, and how crewmenu helps you practise it. (It replaces neither the course, the assessment, nor the skipper's judgment.)

Where it appears

  • RYA — Day Skipper (Practical). Victualling is among the skipper's responsibilities: provisioning the boat appropriately for the planned passage, managing stores and planning the crew's meals.
  • IYT — International Bareboat Skipper. "Galley and provisioning" is a topic of instruction, alongside provisioning and pre-passage checks.
  • Sail Canada — Intermediate Cruising. The standard covers planning menus around the day's activities, the specifics of provisioning and stowage, fresh-water consumption per person, galley safety and cooking systems — and, as an on-water skill, preparing a meal aboard.

(Scope and wording are drawn from each body's published materials — see the links below.)

How crewmenu helps you practise

  • Plan the menus. The day-by-day meal grid makes you think each breakfast, lunch and dinner against the day's plan — an underway day isn't an at-anchor day.
  • Provision deliberately. The provisioning list links each item to the meals that use it, with a per-person quantity shown as a reference. crewmenu never sums it for you — doing the math for your own crew is exactly the skill being assessed.
  • Water per person. Sample menus show water per person per day — a starting point for estimating reserves and conservation.
  • Know your galley. The Boat tab records what's aboard (stove, oven, BBQ, fridge…). No oven? It flags it and steers you toward one-burner, BBQ and cold dishes.
  • Assign who cooks. The cook is set per meal — handy for sharing the load and rehearsing before assessment.

A tool, not a shortcut

crewmenu is an organising and practice tool. It doesn't replace your course, your assessment, or the skipper's judgment — it simply makes the victualling side concrete.

Official sources