ICGS Rajratan , which scrambled from the Indian Coast Guard’s Porbandar base, is a 50-metre-long inshore patrol vessel (IPV) and can achieve a maximum speed of 34 knots, with an economical speed of 16 knots. It carries a 30-mm gun. Questions are being raised about why a Coast Guard vessel should have taken an hour to intercept a fishing boat, but some security experts believe the time taken was not extraordinary. A fishing boat of the type that was intercepted usually clocks 10 to 12 knots per hour. “So it is not unusual that the Coast Guard ship took 45 to 60 minutes to catch up with the boat,” said a former naval official. The time taken for the chase would also depend on the initial distance between the Coast Guard vessel and the boat.
