The all woman sailing ship Mhadei has been in the news for all the right reasons. A great big adventure is successfully completed and the Indian naval women officers have shown the world how it’s done! The all woman team took 254 days to go around world in their sailboat and now they are home. Everyone is in awe of their achievement and happy to welcome them back home.
The team was made up of of six women naval officers: Lieutenant Commander Vartika Joshi, skipper of the vessel, Lieutenant Commanders Pratibha Jamwal and P. Swathi, and Lieutenants S.Vijaya Devi, B.Aishwarya, and Payal Gupta. They prepared for three years; first with shorter stretches and then upping the difficultly level.
The women used a sailing ship to circumnavigate the world – a nonmechanised craft with only a sail that depends upon the wind. Since sailboats are dependent on the vagaries of the weather and are unpredictable nature, it took about 8 months to complete their round the world journey. They got back home to Goa after a 254 day journey.
INSV Tarini is a 55 foot sailboat which has been built indigenously and inducted into the Indian Navy. This is a new version of the INSV Mhadei, which the crew used earlier to sail to the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa.
The official handle of the Indian Air Force congratulated the women on a challenging task completed successfully and welcomed them home.
These officers took the route featuring Fremantle (Australia), then Lyttelton (New Zealand), alter at Port Stanley (Falklands) and then Cape Town (South Africa) before returning home. These sailors clearly made quite an impact!
The nation sometimes unites in pride at certain achievements. “Today India is #TeamTarini” tweeted this Navy Spokesperson handle.
It may be a big adventure, but it was a challenging journey that carried significant risk. It was also unpredictable because when there is no wind, a sailboat will is practically at a standstill. A small craft such as this is also vulnerable to turbulence and bad weather. Life at sea can get very boring as well; which is why the women had stocked up on DVDs and books to keep boredom at bay during their voyage.
This feat has received widespread acclaim and media coverage. These women are an inspiration to millions of little girls who would have watched the high achieving women on TV or on social media.
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