India’s only round-the-globe navigator nears home

NEW DELHI - Peaceful on a flat sea and over with a “nice lunch washed down with a bottle of beer”, Commander Dilip Donde of the navy had a siesta on a sunny afternoon, sailing in the Eastern Hemisphere. “Can life get any better?” wondered the first Indian on a solo sailing expedition around the globe.

Perhaps yes! Life might just get better when he becomes the first Indian to complete a round-the-world sailing expedition this month. On May 22, he is set to return to Mumbai from where he started the journey Aug 19 last year.

After steering the specially designed 56-ft yacht, Mhadei, for about 10 months, passing the south of the continents of Australia, South America and Africa, Donde during his trip has literally seen the highs and lows of the sea.

But the 42-year-old officer, a voracious reader and an avid film watcher, never let the stormy winds or high tides cow him down during his voyage. As a cliché has it: “Beyond 40 degrees South there are no rules, beyond 50 no law and beyond 60 there is no god!”

On one fine morning after getting out of the thundering easterly winds, he was getting nervous as things were going “too smoothly”.

“Just as I was congratulating myself in the morning on finally getting out of the easterlies, both the electronic autopilots (of the yacht) went off…making the motor rotate around itself instead of steering,” he wrote on his blog which he updated throughout the journey.

Finally, he fixed the damage but not before hand-steering the ship for a full day and that too when the wind was playing “truant”.

So far less than 300 people — no Indian among them — have completed the feat of covering a distance of more than the length of a meridian, 21,600 nautical miles crossing the equator twice.

The generally accepted definition of circumnavigation under sails also includes that it should start and end in the same port crossing all meridians at least once.

The boat used for the navigation should not pass through any canals or straits, where the use of engines or towing would be unavoidable, and the vessel should round the three Great Capes - Cape Leeuwin, Australia; Cape Horn, South America; and Cape of Good Hope, Africa.

On his enviously adventurous journey - by the end he will have covered 23,400 nautical miles in 277 days - Donde finished reading a number of books, including Peter Nichols’ “A Voyage for Madmen”, an account of the first solo round-the-world by Sir Robin Knox Johnston from Britain in 1968-69.

“I think sailing today is a cakewalk compared to what the participants of that race went through,” he wrote in the blog.

And guess what he did after reading that? Soak in some light entertainment, watching “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes”, a Marilyn Monroe musical comedy.

One of the memorable periods on the voyage was a day - “a full 48 hrs” - the “longest day” in his life.

Donde crossed the international dateline Dec 14. And the next morning when he woke up it was still Dec 14 because he was on the other side of the meridian.

Confused? Yes, that happens! When you cross the imaginary mark on the globe opposite the prime meridian, you will have to reset your clock and calendar.

Crossing it would either mean subtracting or adding a day in the calendar depending in which direction you are moving. “And suddenly from being 13 hours ahead of GMT, we are 11 hours behind.” Must have been tough to keep track of the time - one of the difficult tasks for the voyager who will return home to a grand welcome.

“It has been a proud achievement for our navy and the country,” Assistant Chief of Naval Staff (Foreign Cooperation and Intelligence) Rear Admiral S.Y. Shrikhande told IANS.

(Sarwar Kashani can be contacted at s.kashani@ians.in)