Two women and a boat: The ocean-sailing team behind Navika Sagar Parikrama

Officially, they are Lieutenant Commander Dilna K and Lieutenant Commander Roopa A, the two women crew of INSV Tarini, setting out on a circumnavigation voyage. To the people around them helping them get ready for their grand quest, they are affectionately referred to as ‘#DilRoo’. This catchy portmanteau of their names reflects the cheerful, if cautious, optimism at the Indian Navy’s Ocean Sailing Node (OSN) in Goa, as the last-minute preparations are going on in full swing. The second edition of the Navika Sagar Parikrama (NSP 2), as the sailing expedition has been called, will be flagged off on October 2 and, thereafter, the courageous duo is expected to be at sea for close to eight months as they navigate more than 21,600 nautical miles (approximately 40,000 km) without any external assistance, relying solely on wind power.

In the words of the Navy spokesman, “The circumnavigation highlights the exceptional valour, courage and perseverance of the officers who will face rigours of high seas, extreme weather conditions, pushing the limits of human endurance. The route will take them through some of the most treacherous waters including the perilous passage around the three great Capes — Cape Leeuwin, Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope.”

That they happen to be women officers says much about how, firstly, the Navy is empowering women in several domains and, secondly, how women are responding positively to such opportunities and challenges. To quote the Navy spokesman again, “The voyage is not just a testament to their personal bravery and skill, but also a celebration of the Indian Navy’s commitment to ‘Nari Shakti’ showcasing their indomitable spirit and determination”.

Apparently, this expedition was conceived by the Indian Navy soon after the inaugural Navika Sagar Parikrama (NSP 1), the first ever Indian circumnavigation of the globe by an all women crew of six officers in 2017. It is understood that it was greenlighted by Admiral KB Singh during his tenure as the Navy Chief a few years ago.

Brief Historical Background

Dilna has never met the late Vice Adm Manohar Prahlad Awati and Roopa barely once but the man considered the ‘Bhisma Pitamah’ of India’s Ocean sailing odyssey would certainly be smiling from Valhalla at the rapid strides in this field. Nursing a dream of having an Indian circumnavigate the globe on a sailing vessel, the indefatigable Awati campaigned tirelessly to make that possible. Less than 20 years ago, he finally got the go ahead from the then Navy Chief, Admiral Arun Prakash.

In the two decades since, India has had eight members in the club — naval officers all in Captain Dilip Donde, Commander Abhilash Tomy (twice, both non-stop), Lieutenant Commander Vartika Joshi, Lieutenant Commander Pratibha Jamwal, Lieutenant Commander P Swathi, Lieutenant Commander Aishwarya Boddapati, Lieutenant Shourgrakpam Vijaya Devi and Lieutenant Payal Gupta. ‘#Dilroo’ is aiming to take that figure into double digits. In fact, the traction that these circumnavigation expeditions have garnered, can be gauged even from the iconic status that Abhilash Tomy’s unsuccessful attempt in 2018 received because of his heroic exploits.

In a way, Ocean sailing’s upward trajectory has been similar to chess where India’s recent successes in the game have been attributed to a certain momentum and coming together of both people and institutions. Much like Visvanathan Anand expanded, enlarged and transformed India’s chess culture, so did Awati, Donde and Tomy transform India’s Ocean sailing landscape. It is worthy of note that Donde trained the six women officers of NSP 1 while Abhilash Tomy has been guiding and mentoring Dilna and Roopa. And, similar to chess where some movement and successes happened before Vishy Anand, so did the world of Ocean sailing develop its initial spurs through the expeditions of vessels like ‘Samudra’ and ‘Varuna’ and the commendable work of their crew and skippers like Soli Contractor, Anup Singh, Vijay Vadhera, GA Duke, RS Gill, VK Gawri to name just a few. Due credit also needs to be given to the efforts made by few civilians like Gulshan Rai and the Indian Army expeditions and their Sailing Clubs that competed with and complemented the efforts of the Navy.

In particular, mention must be made of the voyage by an Indian Army team, on a vessel called ‘Trishna’, which was the pioneering Ocean sailing effort in India. One is not even talking of competitive sailing (or Yachting as it is called) in which India has produced many champions; again, mostly from the Navy and the Army. While not the same as Ocean sailing, the fundamentals and the organisational frameworks are often derived from the same foundation. In this connection, the commissioning of Sailing Ships INS Tarangini (1997) and INS Sudarshini (2012) by the Indian Navy for formalised training of all cadets in Ocean Sailing was a remarkable initiative that gave a huge impetus to ‘across the board, boot camp experience’ to almost all officer trainees of the Navy. But that is a story for some other time.

Building an Ocean Sailing Ecosystem

However, the dizzying pace of the last two decades, verily, signals a new chapter in this journey. It is marked not just by circumnavigation but by several other ocean sailing sorties, by the establishment of an Ocean Sailing Node for formalised training and support, by indigenous building of many sailing vessels, and an institutionalised apparatus that backs such endeavours.

An African proverb, subsequently made famous by a book by Hillary Clinton, says that ‘it takes a village to raise a child’. Whether it be putting an astronaut on the moon or preparing a sailor for circumnavigation, an entire ecosystem supports and sustains that objective. It is to our credit that we have been able to build such an ecosystem in our country too. It is noteworthy that Dilna and Roopa have been trained for three years — across many disciplines — owing to the wherewithal created. Let’s have a brief look at the key players and units that have been instrumental in making NSP 2 possible.

At the apex, the Naval Headquarters and Headquarters, Southern Naval Command (SNC) have played a big part in ensuring harmonised orchestration of the many elements that make for their training, logistics and other aspects of preparation. Varied entities from Flag Officers to foot soldiers, Admirals to Agniveers have been relentless in ensuring that files have been pushed and cases pursued. It is in the fitness of things that almost all in the current top leadership of the Navy, across echelons, have been involved, one way or another, in decision making on previous sailing expeditions or in enabling the current one. Thus, they are aware of the many dimensions and variables in such ‘evolutions’ (a term favoured by the Navy) and what needs to be done.

The Indian Naval Sailing Association (INSA), New Delhi, is the nodal agency for Ocean sailing in India. It handles the overall development of sailing in the Navy. Established in 1961 in Kochi, it shifted to New Delhi in early 2000s and has played a more active role ever since. It is also responsible for conducting sailing activities in the country to popularise the sport. It has, over the years, also played a key role in providing ‘a hassle-free experience’ for the designated crew enabling them to concentrate on training.

The INSA is instrumental both in intra agency coordination within the Navy and inter agency coordination with other ministries and departments of the Government. Moving the financial cases, getting government approval for the expedition and programme, liaison with governments and maritime agencies abroad, all of this and more is undertaken by the INSA. It helps that Captain Manish Sain, the Director of INSA, is himself hugely experienced in this field. He has done four years on our Sailing ship INS Tarangini, two years each, at different times, as the Commanding Officer and Navigating Officer. In that capacity, he has not only trained numerous naval officers in ocean sailing but also understood both the staff work and field work aspects of long sailing expeditions. Sain combines being both an ‘ideator’ and implementor and many recent initiatives owe much to him.

Academic Training and Administrative Support

The Ocean Sailing Node (OSN) was set up by the Navy in 2016 at the INS Mandovi precincts in north Goa. It was a far-reaching step by a Service that was cognisant of the need to, firstly, engender an interest across the service for this extreme sport, secondly, provide a formal training facility for producing more ocean sailors and, thirdly, to enable transition of sailing training from a small dinghy (usually around 20 feet length) to keel boat sailing on the typically bigger sailing vessels such as the 56-footers that Tarini and its sister ship Mhadhei are.

Over the last few years, the OSN has conducted many short and long ocean sailing voyages, carried out ocean sailing courses, trained more than 150 personnel, commissioned four 40-ft sailing vessels — named Kadalpara, Hariyal, Bulbul, Neelkanth — for intermediate training and undertaken customised training programmes for cadets of both Indian Naval Academy (INA) and the National Defence Academy (NDA). Interestingly, over a period of time the training has encompassed both men and women and both officers and sailors, thus creating a larger and diverse pool of sailing talent. Captain Prashant Menon, the Officer in Charge of the OSN recollects “in the last inter-command Ocean sailing race, the participants varied from Commodore to Agniveer”.

For NSP 2, Menon has been like the Project Officer. His role has been one of being Divisional Officer for #DilRoo, besides providing maintenance, administrative and logistic support, both to the vessel and to the daring duo. He also conducts academic classes for them on a range of subjects. Dilna is a Logistics Officer and Roopa belongs to the Naval Armament Inspection (NAI) cadre. When they began sailing and volunteered for the Navika Sagar Parikrama, both of them were not conversant with many subjects that form the core of mainstream naval studies,

Thus, over the last three years, they have progressively been trained “in various subjects like seamanship, navigation, communications, ship handling, Rules of the Road (ROR), meteorology, at various Navy schools in Kochi and elsewhere”. The Naval Maritime Academy (NAMAC) at Mumbai trained them on master mariner courses such as Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers (STCW), Automatic Radar Plotting Aid (ARPA), Master Medicare including first aid, Firefighting and Survival techniques at sea.

The Navy’s medical branch pitched in to provide them a full-fledged medical support team, which includes a psychologist and sleep medicine specialist to monitor their health and medical fitness. Above all, INS Mandovi as the mothership has nurtured the vessel and all the support staff, giving OSN the full range of shore support, infrastructure and hand holding where required.

Practical Training

For practical training, #DilRoo have had the finest at their disposal. They have had the benefit of the counsel and advice of our first solo circumnavigator, the legendary Captain Dilip Donde, who is based in Goa. During their initial voyages, they had sailed under the supervision of Capt Vipul Meherishi and Capt Atool Sinha, both highly respected ‘Seadogs’ in the sailing fraternity. From August 23, they had the best in business — Cdr Abhilash Tomy — putting them through their paces. In April this year, just after the duo had returned after a successful transoceanic voyage to Mauritius,

Tomy told me, “When I joined, the women had done some significant sailing as crew. They had grown sea legs… the next step was to make them sail independently and together. My aim during training was to teach them safe and correct procedure for evolutions, and give them an exhaustive knowledge of all the systems in the boat. So, we started with classroom sessions, followed by sessions in the boat, and then sailing sessions ironing out all critical points which could lead to problems - for eg, coming alongside, entry and leaving harbour, hoisting main and reefing it etc…my job was tremendously reduced thanks to the willingness and effort that the women have put in.”

He added, “Merely after a few days of training, they were able to take the boat out of harbour for a day sail, and then a training sortie to Karwar and back…by then we had the confidence to send them to Port Blair and back via Kochi and Chennai, navigating the TSS off Sri Lanka, etc. The next step in training was to send them on a longer passage to Mauritius and back where they could experience all sorts of weather. Personally, I think they have done well, especially in comparison to other crew who have sailed the same route before. They have been safe, and quite professional in dealing with defects in the boat and navigating it, and have brought boat back in an excellent state of preservation.”

Adds Menon, “Our basic idea was that they should do everything independently. From speaking to them on video conference every day when they were at sea, to not doing so at all was an important development.” He recollects that after a voyage to Chennai when Tarini faced extreme bad weather, he was pleasantly surprised that when they returned to Goa, the ship had zero defects. It meant that “not only had they handled the vessel very well, but also, they had learnt how to effect repairs at sea”.

Shipbuilder and Refitter

The other important person in this matrix is Ratnakar Dandekar. Dandekar built the INSV Tarini, a Van De Stat (Dutch design) class, a few years ago, in his shipyard at Goa, for the first edition of the Navika Sagar Parikrama. By then, having built the Mhadhei and with its two successful voyages, Dandekar had acquired considerable experience and expertise in the business. Team #DilRoo too preferred the Tarini for NSP 2 and trained on it to develop that unique bond between the crew and the vessel. Dandekar has now moved up to become the Technical Adviser in ‘Hodi Innovations’, a company started by his son Prathamesh.

Happily, for all concerned, his involvement with Tarini has remained unchanged. It is under his supervision and eagle eye, that the Long Maintenance Period (LMP) of the vessel was undertaken from May to July this year. Essentially, a refit of sorts, it involved dry docking and bottom cleaning, repair of winches, audit of wood and Glass Reinforced Plastic (GRP) that constitutes much of the hull and a major equipment upgrade. Dandekar’s deep and intimate knowledge of the vessel was a significant factor in ensuring that vessel was ready for the circumnavigation expedition.

Popular Support

Ocean Sailing, like Chess and unlike Cricket, Football or Tennis is not quite a spectator sport. The pace is often too slow, the technicalities are esoteric and tactics difficult to comprehend. Therefore, understandably, notwithstanding its charm or the unparalleled demands that it makes on participants, it does not quite engender huge popular support. This, sometimes, tends to obscure the stupendous scale of achievements of those who partake in this extreme sport. Notwithstanding these limitations, there has been some forward movement, over the last few years, in terms of public understanding of this sport.

Arguably, the Golden Globe Race last year (GGR 23) was the tipping point as many in the country followed, with bated breath, Abhilash Tomy’s photo finish in the race and the twists of fortunes. That was the time, when we witnessed some commentaries and reports on the race in some sections of the mainstream media. Digital media platforms were also harnessed to form WhatsApp groups dedicated to following the race with many experts offering their analysis of the race on a daily basis.

This group of people, which gradually expanded to include more sailing enthusiasts and interested laypersons has, subsequently, followed up on other international ocean sailing events where Indians are involved. It is expected that the NSP 2 will also be similarly followed and exploits of #DilRoo written about and commented upon. This may gradually lead to informed commentary on Ocean sailing in our country and must be welcomed independently as a separate development that will further strengthen the cause of this sport.

The Intrepid Duo

While India has in its Ocean sailing catalogue feats of solo sailing and sailing by group of people (usually six), this is among the few occasions it has been done double handed, viz. crewed by only two over such a long distance. While technical proficiency is essential, it is also necessary that the two members have a good understanding among themselves and with the boat. Both need to develop trust, camaraderie and ready faith in each other’s abilities. Interestingly, the two officers’ lives have similar trajectories.

Both have armed forces’ background — Dilna’s father was in the Army while Roopa’s served in the Air Force; both have been actively involved in NCC before joining the Navy and both have led Navy’s Republic Day marching contingents. Dilna is a commerce graduate who joined the Logistics branch in the Navy. She has also been a national level shooter and university level cricket player. Roopa has been a university rank holder in aeronautical engineering who joined the Navy’s Armament Inspectorate branch. She is an active marathon runner. Both of them have sailed on various other long distance sailing expeditions and have logged an impressive 38000 nautical miles of sailing under their belt.

It, therefore, comes as no surprise that ever since they volunteered for this expedition, both women have made INSV Tarini their home. They often stay on the ship even when it is berthed alongside its home port in Goa and they are the ones who clean its decks and sweep its floors and do all the ‘ship’s husbandry’ tasks. Thus, they have developed a deep bonding and attachment with the vessel and a huge stakeholdership with the Navy’s ambitious project.

The personal rapport too has built up over time. As Dilna says, “We have done two long sorties together — to Port Blair and back, and then to Mauritius and back. We understand each other.” Adds Roopa, “I know her strengths and weaknesses and she knows mine. More importantly, we know how to use that to generate overall positive outcomes.” Both of them are looking forward to the expedition, admitting to ‘both excitement and having butterflies in their stomach’. As Roopa puts it “This is a moment we have waited for the last three years. We have sacrificed a lot, trained hard and learnt a lot. It is no doubt a life changing experience.” Dilna chips in “There are mixed feelings. We still have so much to do before casting off. We are aware we will be going through different weather patterns. We are fully prepared.”

Conclusion

Notwithstanding earlier successful ventures of the first three Sagar Parikrama editions, the Navy has been preparing for NSP 2 with even greater levels of rigour and practice. The Navy has exhaustively trained these officers in all aspects of Ocean sailing. Speaking at the curtain raiser to the event, recently, at New Delhi, Vice Admiral Krishna Swaminathan, the Vice Chief of Naval Staff (VCNS), described Navika Sagar Parikrama 2 as “a journey of empowerment, innovation, and commitment to India’s maritime heritage while charting new paths for a brighter and empowered future”. He also reaffirmed Indian Navy’s pledge to uphold the highest standards of professionalism and responsibility, not just on our shores but across the vast expanse of the world’s oceans. In the long term, the Navy is also optimistic that as keel boat sailing becomes an Olympic discipline the skills and talent built in this sport, over all these years, will yield good results.

It would only be fair to give the final word on this expedition to Abhilash Tomy. He opines, “Dilna and Roopa have received adequate training and time on the boat; that besides, the Navy has put in much effort to have the Tarini undergo a refit fit for a circumnavigation. I am quite happy with the way they have been sailing to various ports in the Indian Ocean. The crew has enough experience, and they are raring to go. I can only wish them an uninteresting voyage!”.

Hopefully, all these efforts will bear fruit and the Navy will be able to notch another sailing glory. As they set out on their splendid quest, Dilna and Roopa embody resilience and indomitable spirit. They carry the hopes, wishes and prayers of billions of Indians. Let us wish them luck, raise a toast to the Navy’s humungous efforts and celebrate women power in the country.

Commodore Srikant Kesnur, a Navy veteran, writes on Maritime issues. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect that of the Firstpost.