Canned food stores for a long time without any refrigeration or effort. This makes canned food an ideal on board a sailboat. If we run out of electricity, the cans don't care; they can't spill, they can't spoil. They just sit there until you are ready to use them! Enter the trusty can opener. Simply pop it onto the can and open up the delicious well preserved food inside.
Herein lies the problem, if you can't get the can open, you can't get to your food! On land, if your can opener stops working, a trip to the corner store will remedy this. Out to sea, there is no corner store. Add to this the salty corrosive ocean air and a perfectly good can opener can seize up with rust.
The search for the perfect can opener is on going. It needs to be strong enough to open all the cans without fail. It needs to survive the attacks of rust and corrosion. Lastly it needs to be comfortable!
We had a very good one that lasted for around 2 years, but then the cutting wheel seized up with rust. Then we purchased another can opener which felt very comfortable, but will slip when trying to open a can. So far it continues to work, but I'm waiting for the day the can opener will die.
While in a local grocery store, I came across a very simplistic looking can opener that appears to be the solution to our problems! It looks simple enough, but it is not very comfortable to hold.
The obvious alternative to can openers is to simply purchase cans that have a pull tab on the top. We try to purchase all our cans with this feature, but some foods simply are not available in the stores we have visited with them. Common offenders are canned carrots and tuna. Other foods like beans, peas, corn, meats, and salmon are all available with pull tabs, greatly reducing our stress when opening canned foods.
On a separate point, you should keep a second can opener tucked away in a cupboard. If your only can opener were to fall overboard, then you will find yourself in a very frustrated and hungry state.
If you have any suggestions for a good can opener, please let us know in the comments section down below.
