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In pics: Indian Navy’s new sailing vessel with all-women crew reaches Mauritius
The first Indian all-woman crew of the navy will circumnavigate the globe in August 2017.
The Indian Navy’s sailing vessel with an all-woman crew, INSV Tarini, which is due to begin a circumnavigation of the globe in August, reached Mauritius on Tuesday on its first sea voyage, a defence statement said.
This vessel, inducted into the Indian Navy in February, is a sister vessel of Indian Navy’s first sailing vessel INSV Mhadei.
“Tarini has begun a new chapter in the history of ocean sailing by Indian women, wherein the first Indian all-woman crew of IN would endeavour to circumnavigate the globe in August 2017,” the statement said.
“Tarini aims to promote a spirit of adventure and camaraderie amongst the young Naval personnel in the years ahead.”
INSV Tarini is 55-feet in length and built in India in line with the ‘Make in India’ initiative of the Indian Navy at the Aquarius Shipyard Pvt Ltd at Divar, Goa.
The boat has been built to a stock design by Van de Stadt of the Netherlands.
The hull is made of wooden core fiberglass sandwich construction for a better performance than aluminum and steel, and the vessel carries a suite of six sails.
The mast of the boat is 25-metres tall and has been custom built by Southern Spars, Cape Town, for sailing in extreme conditions.
It is skippered by Lt Commander Vartika Joshi, a naval architect, and the all-woman naval officers crew comprises Lt Commander Pratibha Jamwal, Lieutenants P Swathi, Vijaya Devi, Payal Gupta and B Aishwarya.
The all-woman team has already sailed INSV Mhadei to Visakhapatnam from Goa for the International Fleet Review 2016 and thereafter to Mauritius and back.
Following that, they sailed the boat on a gruelling voyage to Cape Town in December 2016.
