KOCHI: An all-woman team of the Indian Navy may attempt a circumnavigation of the globe on a sail ship, probably as early as next year.
As a prelude to this, Indian Navy’s sailing vessel ‘Mhadei’ with an all-woman crew, was flagged off from Goa to Cape Town on Wednesday. Admiral Monty Khanna, Commandant Naval War College, flagged off the voyage.
Mhadei’s voyage with an all-woman has a twin motive — grooming of the all-woman crew for attempting circumnavigation of the globe next year, besides providing impetus to the ‘ocean racing’ abilities of the Navy.
The vessel, which is scheduled to reach Cape Town on December 15. will participate in the ‘Cape to Rio Race’ (Cape Town to Rio de Janeiro) which will start from Cape Town on December 26.The Cape to Rio race is the longest continent to continent yacht race in the Southern hemisphere with a total length of 6,500 km across the South Atlantic Ocean. No less than 50 yachts are expected to take part in this year’s race.
The present voyage of INSV Mhadei consists of four legs — Goa to Cape Town, Cape Town to Rio de Janeiro (the actual race) and back to Cape Town and return to Goa. The Navy has identified four sets of crew members to participate in each leg of the voyage with the purpose of preparing a larger base of adventure loving seafarers.
Though the leg up to Cape Town is being undertaken by an all-woman crew skippered by Lieutenant Commander Vartika Joshi, the Rio race would be undertaken by a mixed crew comprising men and women which would be helmed by Captain Atool Sinha, Officer-in-Charge of the recently-established Ocean Sailing Node of the Indian Navy.
The return leg will also have separate sets of crew and the vessel is expected to return to INS Mandovi in May next year.