Naval officer sails out of eye of storm
Indian Naval officer Abhilash Tomy, 39, will go down in history as the man who sailed into the eye of the storm and lived to tell the tale.
For the Alappuzha native, who grew up reading Moby Dick and Treasure Island, ‘The Tempest’ turned out to be a personal saga.
The Kirti Chakra awardee was sailing on SV Thuriya, an indigenously built sailing vessel, as India’s representative in the Golden Globe Race, which began on July 1 – a solo, gruelling 30,000 mile-circumnavigation of the globe in a yacht with no modern technology except communication equipment, when a storm struck, about 1,900 nautical miles from Perth, Australia, on September 21.
The Thuriya was buffeted by winds at 130kmph and lashed by 15-metre high waves, which ripped off its main mast. The flag post fell on his back, grievously injuring him and putting him out of commission.
He was rescued after three days by French fishing vessel Osiris, in a multi-nation operation by France, India and Australia on Monday.
The Indian Navy’s maritime surveillance aircraft P8I assisted in the operations. It flew in from Mauritius in the wee hours on Sunday and had located the “mast broken boat rolling excessively.”
Tomy was in the third position in the race and had sailed over 10,500 nautical miles in the last 84 days, since the competition began. On Sunday, he managed to get in touch with the organisers of the race in France through messages and requested for help as he was unable to move on his own.
According to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority’s search and rescue manager, the area in the southern Indian Ocean could be “treacherous” during poor weather conditions, and was known to cause damage to vessels.
His father, V C Tomy, heaved a sigh of relief on Monday and confirming the news, said Tomy was tired, but conscious and dehydrated. “Yes, he has been rescued by a ship and what I can say is he is mentally stable. Now with this news, we are relieved 75 per cent. We all were tense for the past three days...,” Tomy told media in Kochi.
He retired as a Lieutenant Commander in the Indian Navy, the same rank as that of his son.
“This is basically an adventure and in such events it is a 50:50 chance and he and we were well aware of this. He will come out of it. What we are told is that he is going to be moved to Amsterdam. Initially it was said he would be taken to Australia. His brother is in Australia and I have also started to move my papers to go to be with him. We are happy now as the prayers of so many has been answered,” said the retired naval Commander.