Champion sailor Tomy reaches Vizag, shifted to naval hospital
NEW DELHI : Indian warship INS Satpura on Saturday reached Vizag with champion sailor Commander Abhilash Tomy on board, eight days after it picked him up from from Île Amsterdam, a remote island in the southern Indian Ocean where he was undergoing treatment for a back injury he suffered while negotiating a deadly storm that left his yacht crippled last week.
Tomy was participating in this year’s Golden Globe Race (GGR), a circumnavigation race involving solo participants, and which bars the use of modern technology.
Eastern Naval Command chief Vice Admiral Karambir Singh briefly interacted with Tomy and enquired about his health and the rescue operation, the navy said in a statement.
Singh also met Captain Alok Ananda, the skipper of INS Satpura, who lost his father while the ship was on operational deployment and diverted for Tomy’s rescue. “Commander Tomy has now been shifted to naval hospital INHS Kalyani for observation and medical assistance,” a navy spokesperson said.
The 39-year-old officer suffered a debilitating back injury on September 21 after the rough seas and powerful winds pummeled his yacht Thuriya, sending it into a 360-degree spin. He was rescued 70 hours later by French patrol vessel Osiris in a dramatic mission in one of the remotest spots on Earth.
Commander Abhilash Tomy became the first Indian to circumnavigate the globe on board his boat Mhadei — solo, non-stop and unassisted in 2013. He was awarded India’s second-highest peace-time gallantry award, Kirti Chakra, for the feat.