It began as a dream by vice admiral Manohar Awati, who years and years ago, pushed India to consider some ambitious sailing records like solo circumnavigation of the earth. Awati may have retired, but his perseverance paid off when the Indian Navy decided to build sailing vessel Mhadei.
The dream was taken forward by a maverick officer, Captain Dilip Donde, who, without much though of what he was getting himself into, volunteered to take the boat on her maiden ride across the world (2009-10). That Donde was a clearance diver by training and lacked enough experience in what he was volunteering for is another story altogether.
Commander Abhilash Tomy fine-tuned Donde's feat, becoming the first Indian to do a non-stop circumnavigation of the globe (2013). Tomy too, was a naval aviator by training, but he had been part of Donde's support crew. Thus, he was as intimately involved with Mhadei as her first skipper.
Awati's dream will, on Saturday, shape into something bigger than even he may have imagine when the Indian Navy chief Admiral Sunil Lanba commissions INSV Tarini, Mhadei's younger sibling. The commissioning crew, an impressive all-woman line up under the captainship of Commander Vartika Joshi, are already preparing to set sail on an all-woman circumnavigation. This will be another first for Indian Navy, which doesn't really have much history of women aboard ships, let alone participating in adventure cruises.