The more you cook onboard, the more pots and pans you will collect. On one of our first boats, we actually fired up the alcohol stove and cooked 1 pot meals when we were on the hook. Then we added an electric frying pan onboard and a portable generator. Of course we used a Magma charcoal grill.
Once we traded up to a boat with an electric cooktop and a built in microwave oven, the pots and pans and glass casseroles found their way onboard. When I upgraded the galley and got rid of the electric cooktop for a Princess 3-burner stove with an oven, even more pots and pans came onboard because the range of things we could make was greatly expanded with what is known as a full size oven on a boat. It’s no where near the size of a 30 inch range found at home, but it is much larger than the microwave and a toaster oven. I can bring cookie sheets from home and actually bake cookies in it. Baking cookies isn’t that hard. Pillsbury makes it easy. Just get a roll of cookie dough to take.
You would be surprised at how good fresh bake chocolate chip cookies taste out on the hook.
Anyway, back to the pots and pans: I use Corning Visions Cookware. It is heavy glass pots and pans. Now this sounds very strange. Glass pots and pans on a boat? Yep. The glass has a coating and is pretty tough. In the 22 years that I have used them, I have never had one break. And I have been in some very big storms from New England to Florida. Why do I like them over metal pots? Easy, they are more versatile than metal pots. The Visions cookware can be used on the burners on the stove and go right in the microwave too. Try that with a metal pot. So it saves me from having to have one pot for the stove burners and one for the microwave. Now I do keep one Cuisinart frying pan on board. It is one of the expensive ones with the cast metal handle instead of a plastic one. I paid about $49 for it. You might be able to find one for less money. The thing to look at is the handle. This frying pan can be used on the cook top burners and can go in the oven. When you are choosing pots and pans try to get ones that can be used in more than one place.
Visions cookware is no longer manufactured. However, there is plenty of it around. Yard Sales, Flea Markets and EBay are good places to look.
Put a pot or two and a frying pan onboard to start with. And if you are planning to cook something special that requires a special pot, put it on your list to remember to take it from home. And when you go home from the boat, take it with you. This keeps from adding to the waterline—which is a term used to describe a boat that is overloaded with gear.