In 1987, two men stood at Indira Point, India’s southernmost tip, with their eyes cast to the sea – The late Rear Admiral Arun Auditto and Commander Vijay Vadhera (Retd). The vast horizon that stretched before them was scant, save for one very out-of-place object.
Swaying in the blue-green waters here was Sleipner, a twin-masted ketch of French manufacture. On enquiring with the locals, Cdr Vadhera learned that the yacht, which belonged to a German couple, was confiscated for transporting contraband into Indian waters.
Now, this vessel would have meant nothing to the officers had it not been for a singular event that transpired some months ago.
The Indian Army had got one-up over the Navy when a 10-member crew embarked on an around-the-world voyage aboard Trishna two years ago. In December 1986, three months before Sleipner’s sighting, Trishna had passed by Indira Point amid much fanfare, leaving the Navy, deemed rightful masters of the sea, red-faced.
Now, with an able yacht in its possession, it was time the Navy settled scores. RAdm Auditto sent a slew of notes to the headquarters, apprising them about this chance discovery and the avenues it could potentially open. And soon, plans were afoot to replicate a similar journey around the world. Cdr Vadhera, who had sailed the yacht to Visakhapatnam, was named its skipper.
“It was a grand plan. The Navy had not done anything of this scale before. I was put in charge, in part because I had some hands-on experience having sailed the boat to the mainland,” said Cdr Vadhera, who also saw to the crew’s training.
Despite high ambitions, scepticism hung like a dark cloud, prompting the Navy to revisit the plan. It was made a tri-service mission after enlisting members from the Army and the Air Force. It was also decided that the entire crew would be rotated at regular intervals.
Members of the Indian Army Corps of Engineers onboard Trishna on their voyage around the world in 1986.Special arrangement
After much ado, the yacht, renamed Samudra, was flagged off from Vishakapatnam on September 28, 1988.
The crew’s inexperience was evident early on. Just two days into the voyage, the yacht was caught in the eye of a storm. “We were navigating without any modern electronic gadgetry. Only a sextant and magnetic compass. We forgot to take note that a low pressure was forming in the Bay of the Bengal,” Cdr Vadhera recalled.
However, the French ketch endured the storm, which lasted for three days. “Save for two torn sails, which we fixed with patch repairs, the boat was solid, and we continued on,” the commander added, skimming over the details.
The SamudraSpecial arrangement
A Navy document that TNIE is in receipt of filled in the rest of the story. “During the storm, Cdr Vadhera, disregarding personal safety, carried out emergency patch repairs on the sails, a task, if not completed on time, would have resulted in danger to the yacht and crew,” the note read.
The journey that would be the impetus for the Navy’s sailing expeditions would not have leapfrogged to where it is today had it not been for Cdr Vadhera’s resolve. For his courage, the commander was awarded the Gallantry medal.
Samudra completed the voyage on December 4, 1989, lighting another beacon in the history of Indian maritime adventure. “Until that point, the Navy had spared little thought to sailing expeditions. The priority was to build up the naval strength. After all, the decades prior had seen three wars,” said Commodore Srikant B Kesnur (Retd), a navy historian.
“This is where the late Vice Admiral M P Awati comes into the picture,” Cmdr Srikant added.
The late Vice Admiral M P Awati(Photo | Padmaja Parulkar)
As intense as Cdr Vadhera’s resolve was VAdm Awati’s persistence. Since his retirement in 1983, the war veteran had been writing tirelessly to the Chief of Naval Staff to set up a sailing expedition, a wish he had harboured since his early days in the Navy.
“Then, he was part of the Royal Indian Navy and had done training in England. During this time, he happened to chance upon a book which left a lasting impression on him – Sailing Alone Around the World, a memoir by Joshua Slocum,” said Vice Admiral I C Rao (Retd).
VAdm Awati was also there on the shores of Port Blair, where the Sleipner was discovered. Now, with both Cdr Vadhera and RAdm Auditto as allies, his pursuit gained momentum. But the Navy is an unyieldly beast, and the idea of circumnavigation was too strange for the 1980s.
Despite Samudra’s success, it took another 15 years for the cogs to turn. In 2006, VAdm Awati’s letter to the Naval headquarters received a rare reply – from Admiral Arun Prakash. For a man who grew up in the Himalayas, Adm Arun Prakash grasped the significance of mastering the seas. He greenlighted the grand project.
“The building blocks were finally falling into place,” recalled Captain D K Sharma (Retd), who was the Navy spokesperson then. “Only one final block remained – someone to execute it all.”
Enter Captain Dilip Donde (Retd). A relatively unknown name in the big leagues of Indian sailing, Captn Donde had a rare trait.
Forged on the very anvil that spawned men like VAdm Awati, Captn Donde too was steadfast in his approach, showing up no matter how big the challenge.
“I liked sailing. I was then the XO of Tarangini, the Navy’s sail training vessel. We had done a few expeditions on it, and so, with that experience, I volunteered,” Captn Donde told TNIE.
But the journey that lay before him was unlike any other he had experienced thus far. What compounded the matter was VAdm Awati’s condition – that the boat must be built in India.
“But then, no Indian company had constructed an ocean-faring sailboat. The boatbuilder Ratnakar Dandekar, whose Aquarius Shipyard in Goa had won the Navy’s contract, had not even sailed once. But he poured his heart and soul into the work,” Captn Donde said.
Captain Dilip Donde (Retd) is the first Indian to complete a solo voyage around the world.(Photo | Special arrangement)
The boat, Mhadei, was ready in 2008, and the following year, on August 19, 2009, Captn Donde’s circumnavigation journey commenced from Mumbai. There were four stops planned along the way. “All because of the Navy’s insistence. The sun had yet to dispel the scepticism,” Captn Donde added. But what troubled him most at sea was, surprisingly, paperwork.
“Forms of this, forms of that – all necessary to see this journey through. I was drowning in them. So, I requested the Navy to assign someone to help me. They sent Cdr Abhilash Tomy,” recalled Captn Donde.
It was the start of an exciting collaboration. “Tomy had a spark. Everyone saw his potential, including the Navy. The gears turned again,” Captn Sharma told TNIE.
When Captn Donde sailed Mhadei into Mumbai harbour on May 19, 2010, he became the first Indian national to complete a solo circumnavigation around the world.
But even before this journey’s completion, plans were already afoot for the next – the second in VAdm Awati’s Sagar Parikrama project. If Donde had made the journey with stops, Cdr Tomy would go one better – this time, without the stops.
“One can only marvel at VAdm Awati’s clarity of thought. He executed it step by step and built an entire ecosystem within the span of two decades,” Cmde Srikant said.
On March 31, 2013, Cdr Tomy became the first Indian and the 79th person to complete a solo, non-stop, unassisted voyage around the world. “It was a watershed moment in Indian sailing, no doubt,” said Captn Sharma, adding: “But VAdm Awati was not finished. A third Sagar Parikrama project was in the works – to see a woman sail around the world.”
“Women navy officers had no experience of going to the sea. So the Navy was very sceptical. It decided to send a team instead, and again, I was in charge of training,” Catpn Donde said.
There are many in Uttarakhand who’ve not seen the sea. But Lt Cdr Vartika Joshi, a daughter of the hills, the sea was everything. Since childhood, she had harboured a desire to join the Navy.
“The sheer love for the sea pushed me on. Then, I was totally ignorant of the fact that women navy officers were, in fact, not taken to the sea. I was part of the technical cadre,” Lt Cdr Joshi told TNIE.
Boatbuilder Ratnakar Dandekar, Cdr Abhilash Tomy, Captain Dilip Donde.(Photo | Special arrangement)
But occasionally, the Navy had sail training exercises – usually a race – and Vartika signed up for it all. “I remember very vividly the first race – from Cape Town to Rio. The voyage from Goa to the race’s starting point was longer than the race itself, giving me ample time to learn the ropes,” Lt Cdr Joshi said.
Soon, she was called up for a few more sailing projects, including the peninsular voyage that Captn Donde undertook to celebrate Mhadei’s milestone of completing 100,000 nautical miles.
To see more women sail – this was just an experimental idea at the time, or so Lt Cdr Joshi thought at the time, unaware of the grand plans that were in motion.
“It was after my journey with Captn Donde that I learned that the Navy was looking for a team to complete a circumnavigation mission. I wasted no time to express my interest to join,” Lt Cdr Joshi said.
Soon, a six-member crew was put together. They included Lt Cdr Vartika Joshi, also the skipper, from Uttarakhand; Lt Cdr Pratibha Jamwal from Himachal Pradesh; Lt Cdr Aishwarya Boddapati from Telangana; Lt Cdr P Swathi from Andhra Pradesh; Lt Shourgrakpam Vijaya Devi from Manipur; and Lt Payal Gupta from Uttarakhand.
Though VAdm Awathi’s initial plan was to see a woman sail solo, the Navy thought it best to send a crew instead. The crew trained on Mhadei. Since the vessel had already completed two missions, the Navy deemed that a new boat was necessary. Ratnakar Dandekar was tasked again – to build Tarini, a replica of Mhadei, but with additional facilities to accommodate a larger crew.
In 2017, Tarini was commissioned by the Navy, and the third (Navika) Sagar Parikrama was underway. Unlike previous voyages, this one was an East-West circumnavigation and had four stops, the same as Donde’s. But like any voyage, this too was fraught with dangers.
“We ran out of water and had to wait days for the rains to replenish our supply. Later, in the Pacific Ocean, far away from any landmass, we were battered by 70-knot wind and 10-meter waves. It lasted for 19 hours,” Lt Cdr Joshi recalled.
For all its dangers, the voyage was also littered with magnificent moments. “In the second leg of the journey, we saw the Southern Lights. The whole sky was lit in green, dancing. On another occasion, it was the ocean that was lit, by bioluminescence,” Lt Cdr Joshi recalled.
Tarini completed the journey on May 21, 2018, to a rousing welcome. But later that year, on November 3, the father of Indian circumnavigation, VAdm M P Awati, breathed his last.
INSV Tarini
“He was a visionary. I’ve not seen anyone command such respect as VAdm Awati did. He dedicated his entire life to the Navy. Despite being the legend that he is, Awati was everyone’s friend,” recalled Captn Donde.
Cdr Tomy, too, shares similar sentiments. Following his accident in 2018’s Golden Globe Race, a sailing competition, when everyone advised Tomy to take a break, VAdm Awati was stern in his instruction. “Get back there, finish the race. I want you to come first!” the admiral is seen roaring in a video. And so Cdr Tomy did.
In the subsequent edition of the Golden Globe Race (2022), Cdr Tomy overcame overwhelming odds to finish second. He is the first Asian to climb the podium.
“This nearly 30,000 nautical mile-long journey without modern navigational instruments was a homage to the ‘golden age’ of sailing. Cdr Tomy’s win was a watershed moment in the world of sailing,” beams Ramesh Menon, who’s known him for years.
Meanwhile, the appetite of the Navy has grown large. “Plans are already afoot for the next edition of the Sagar Parikrama voyage – the fourth circumnavigation mission. This time, it will see two young women officers sail around the world aboard the Navy’s celebrated sailing vessel, INSV Tarini.
Lieutenant commanders Dilna K, who hails from Kozhikode, and Pondicherry native Roopa Alagirisamy have been handpicked for this mission. Both the women won the Admiral Ramdas Trophy, instituted by the Yachting Association of India, last year.
Cdr Abhilash, whom the Navy’s Ocean Sailing Node had tasked to train Lt Cdr Dilna and Lt Cdr Roopa last year, said that the duo are “quite well prepared.” Their journey is slated for October 1, TNIE has learned.
“There are fewer people in the world who have circumnavigated the world than there are people who have gone to space,” Cmdr Srikant remarked during a recent lecture in Karwar, Karnataka. With the successful completion of Sagar Parikrama IV, India will have 10 circumnavigators. By no account a small feat.
“It will not end here. That’s not how the Navy works. Greater things are certainly on the anvil,” Captn Sharma concluded.
Naval Chief Admiral Sunil Lanba with the all-women crew of Tarini.(Photo | Wikipedia)