All-woman crew drops anchor in Chennai

In her first port of call with an all-women crew, Navy’s adventure sailing boat INSV Mhadei that has clocked over a lakh nautical miles, including two circumnavigations, entered the Chennai port on Saturday.

The team of five women officers led by Lieutenant Commander Vartika Joshi, the skipper of the vessel, is on its way back from the International Fleet Review that concluded at Visakhapatnam a few days ago.

Lt. Cdr. Joshi was one of the women officers who trained under Commander Dilip Donde, the first Indian to circumnavigate the globe onboard a sailing vessel. “We have learned over the years and are confident of leading the vessel ourselves. We are training for our first circumnavigation with an all-women crew in 2017,” says Ms. Joshi.

For Lieutenant P. Swathi, originally an Air Traffic Controller with the Navy, sailing is not new as she learnt to sail when she was just 12. Sailing is mostly about mental toughness though physical fitness is also essential, she added and shared an anecdote to prove her point. “On our trip from Cape Town in South Africa to Goa, we faced a storm and were hit by strong winds up to 60 knots. But we managed as we are trained to face the unknown.”

Lieutenants Pratibha Jamwal and Vijaya Devi, and Sub Lieutenant Payal Gupta are the other officers of the team. The team would be in the city till February 16, after which it will set sail for Kochi en route to home port Goa. Another woman officer Lieutenant B. Aishwarya is set to join the team next month.

The Navy is in the process of acquiring another sailing boat, the crew said.

The team of five women officers led by Lieutenant Commander Vartika Joshi is on its way back from International Fleet Review