Boat Food: Heel Weenie and Twizzlers

Triage starting the Annapolis-Newport Race, 2017

Everybody’s heard about food groups. Veggies, grains, fruits, legumes, meat, dairy, and so on. On the boat there is another division. The heel weenie and Twizzlers are great examples of the “waterproof”group.

“Waterproof” food is a natural evolution of necessity on long distance voyages and is a class all to itself. Sometimes the conditions on the boat just don’t let you get a nice meal. Often the rocking, pitching or pounding, combined with rain, mist and sea spray make it impractical or dangerous to prepare meals. Other times, there is just too much going on to stop for a significant meal break.

My first heel weenie was on a spring break sailboat charter with Mom and Dad. We were making our way out of the St. Johns River near Jacksonville, Florida on the first day of the trip. The nice spring morning weather gave way to squally rain and mist by lunch time. Mom was still sorting out the galley of the unfamiliar boat, and decided that best way to get a little hot food into the hungry sailors was the heel weenie. She boiled water on the galley stove to warm up a pack of dogs, and then passed the naked hot dogs out the hatch to the crew in the cockpit. On deck, my brothers and I enjoyed feeling the warmth of the meat tube in cold, wet hands, and then the wonderful warm tummy after munching it down. The best part? The heel weenie could get rained on, or doused in sea spray, and they were still edible. They were heated in water, so a little more wouldn’t hurt them.

Years later, I heard about two guys sailing a long distance race who used the heel weenie as the foundation of their food planning. They put a pressure cooker on the gimbaled galley stove, left the relief valve open, and kept a several packs of dogs simmering for a couple days. The water wouldn’t spill, and the weenies were always ready to go, in the all-important one handed portion. For the reader who isn’t familiar with one-handed food, often times on a sailboat, one hand must be used to keep the sailor secured to the boat, and the free hand accomplishes the task at hand. Consequently, many sailing activities, including eating, are intentionally one-handed.

So, what’s for desert? Ah, the other example of waterproof food. In fact it’s almost perfect for the sailing crew. In 2013, when The Captain and I started an offshore racing program, the navigator on Triage, brought a one pound bag of Twizzlers to munch on during the over-night hours. He stashed them in the navigation table and passed them out to the crew on deck when ever he thought they could use a pick-me-up. They were a hit, and required for every long passage thereafter.

Twizzlers are easy to eat one-handed. They taste the same wet or dry. If your drinking water tastes like the container it was stored in, plastic, steel, or aluminum, bite off the ends and use it as a straw. It will add a nice masking flavor to the water as it passes through. Twizzlers are also more heat resistant than other snacks, so on those hot-hot-hot passages, they will be good to go. It’s even been rumored that they work well in space.

Next time you have a dog or Twizzlers, imagine sitting on a pitching rail, eating them in a chilly rain squall while doused in salty spray, and you can get the sailor food mood.