All-woman Navy crew returns
Expedition included Aishwarya of Hyderabad
An all-woman crew on the INSV Tarini returned to Goa after circumnavigating the globe in a 55-foot sailboat in more than eight months, the first-ever Indian expedition steered by women sailors.
The Navika Sagar Parikrama expedition included Lieutenant Commander P Swathi of Visakhapatnam and Lieutenant Aishwarya Boddapati of Hyderabad. It was flagged off on September 10 and covered a total of 21,980 nautical miles.
Lt Cdr Swathi called it a proud moment for all Indian women. “Being from Vizag has also helped me to get into the expedition. I used to sail every Sunday with the NCC.” She joined the Navy in 2011 as an air traffic control officer when she was 20.
The vessel was captained by Lieutenant Commander Vartika Joshi.
An all-woman crew on the INSV Tarini returned to Goa after circumnavigating the globe in a 55-foot sailboat in more than eight months, the first-ever Indian expedition steered by women sailors.
The vessel was captained by Lieutenant Commander Vartika Joshi, and also comprised Lt Cdr Pratibha Jamwal, Lt.s S. Vijaya Devi and Payal Gupta.
The crew were welcomed by defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Navy chief Admiral Sunil Lanba at the INS Mandovi boat pool in Panaji. They will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday.
She said that flagging off the crew on September 10 last year was her first “out-of-Delhi appointment”, three days after she became the defence minister. “And today, by the grace of God and the grit and courage that the girls have shown, they are back home to join all of us, having made history,” she said.
The six women officers were trained under Captain Dilip Donde, the first Indian to solo circumnavigate the globe between August 19, 2009, and May 19, 2010, onboard the Indian-built vessel INSV Mhadei.