PANAJI: At 5.22pm Thursday, as Lt Cdrs Dilna K and Roopa Alagirisamy stepped on Indian soil after a 239-day historic voyage, they became the first Indian duo to sail across the planet.“Yes. We made it.” These four words from Dilna summed up the poignant and emotional 25,400-nautical-mile journey that began Oct 2 from the banks of the Mandovi.“We saw the ocean and waves rising in anger some days. The waves were as high as 20 feet tall, looking like a wall. But we also had days when the sea was as calm as a mirror, and it felt heavenly, and time felt meaningless,” said Roopa, narrating their audacious endeavour to fly the Tricolour and naval ensign “in every sea and land across the world”.The circumnavigation took them through four oceans, crossing the equator twice and rounding the three great capes – a route acknowledged as the gold standard in ocean sailing. The mission was part of the Navy’s broader initiative to showcase women’s role in maritime operations. It also aimed to inspire a new generation of women to embrace adventure and take to the seas – a domain long dominated by men.“I feel I lived all my seven lives in these eight months. This is not going to be my last journey, I am sorry,” said Roopa with a laugh, as she addressed her family.The voyage tested not just mental endurance but seamanship too. The naval officers navigated some of the world’s most treacherous waters, including the South Pacific and the Southern Ocean. They battled towering waves, gale-force winds and long spells of isolation with only each other for company and their 56-foot yacht as their shelter.During the circumnavigation, the duo suffered a complete navigation blackout in the middle of the night in the Pacific Ocean. “We lost GPS, boat heading, wind instrument, auto-pilot… everything. It took us three hours, but it felt like an eternity to get back the systems. This actually gave us a false sense of security in modern equipment,” Roopa said.The duo covered 25,400 nautical miles over a period of eight months with port calls at Fremantle (Australia), Lyttleton (New Zealand), Port Stanley (Falkland Islands) and Cape Town (South Africa).Commander Abhilash Tomy (retd), the first Indian to sail around the Earth non-stop, provided mentorship to the duo. His survival and maintenance experience helped the duo master the critical skill of dual-handed sailing. Captain Vipul Mehershi, Captain Atul Sinha, and Commander Nikhil Hegde also played a key role in preparing the officers and the vessel for the expedition.The two naval officers’ triumphant return at Mormugao Port was witnessed by defence minister Rajnath Singh and chief of naval staff Admiral Dinesh K Tripathi.
