Around the world in 15 months!
On 10th January, 1987, Trishna, a vintage yacht manned by a 10 member team from the Indian Army Corp of Engineers, returned to the Mumbai docks, after 15 months in sea, post completion of its extraordinary mission. The entire nation rejoiced!
So extraordinary was its feat that it was immediately decided that Trishna should be showcased on a dedicated tableau, in the Republic Day celebrations on 26th January, just 16 days later. This was easier said than done. The tableau had to be fabricated to the exact specs of the Ministry of Defence.
In response, the Indian Railways cut all the red tape and provided a carriage. The Naval Dockyard, Mumbai fabricated the boat cradle overnight on the railway carriage. The Indian Railways carried the boat and its cradle to New Delhi at express speed. The Bengal Engineer Group, Roorkee, sent their fabrication team and completed the fabrication work at Vijay Chowk itself since the boat with its 54 feet high mast could not be transported anywhere else in the capital. The tableau was cleared by the Ministry's internal committee well before the rehearsals commenced.
But what had the boat achieved to be feted in such a grand manner?
Actually, it had travelled round the world, quite literally. In technical terms, it has circumnavigated the earth. In fact, it was the first time Indians circumnavigated the earth, 500 years after Ferdinand Magellan became the first in the world to do so. The history of circumnavigation is in itself an interesting tale.
This mean looking man is Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese nobleman, born around 1480 as Fernão de Magalhães. He was a courtier under the patronage of Queen Eleanor and King Manuel I, in Lisbon. The young man had a sense of adventure and so joined the spate of Portuguese voyages designed to monopolize the lucrative spice routes to India. But he was accused of illegal trading and hence fell out of favor of Manuel I.
At that time, Portugal and Spain had an intense rivalry to find sea routes to spice havens in the Far East. So Magellan went to Spain, gained its citizenship and convinced King Charles V to grant him five ships to find a new sea route to East - not by traveling eastwards as was normally done, but by traveling westwards and circling the Earth, around the Americas, as was never done.
Magellan negotiated great wealth and status for himself for the trip. Charles V promised to give him a decade-long monopoly on any route he might discover, a cut of the profits, and a noble title to boot.
Though the trip was successful, Magellan did not survive to enjoy his riches. To begin with, his Spanish crew resented their Portuguese master. Next, a few months of sailing took them to what is modern day Argentina in South America. There, the ship was marooned for months because of bad weather. The crew mutinied. One ship was wrecked, one abandoned the expedition and headed back home. Magellan took control of the crew and the remaining ships by being brutal with the dissenters. He beheaded a few, enslaved a few and abandoned a few. Finally they set sail again.
As they crossed the Pacific, their food supplies got spoiled, starvation struck and so did scurvy. Some how, they reached Phillipines. In Phillipines, they unnecessarily got tangled in a war with the local chieftains and Magellan got killed!
His Spanish slave, Juan Sebastian Elcano captained the ship and brought it back to Spain in September, 1522, exactly three years after they began their expedition. So, technically Elcano was the first man to circumnavigate the Earth. But the credit goes to Magellan.
Though he lived 500 years ago, the legacy of Ferdinand Magellan lasted long beyond his lifetime. His trip proved to Europe, waking up from the dark ages, that the Earth was indeed round, there were no monsters at its previously imagined flat edges, that this round Earth could be circumnavigated, that this circumnavigation could be done for commerce, and that this commerce could cloak imperial ambitions.
One of the legacies of this first ever circumnavigation of the globe was the creation of a commercial enterprise in 1600 called the British East India Company, which came to the shores of the richest land on Earth to trade, took advantage of the ceaseless internecine quarrels of its small and big kingdoms, conquered them, ruled over this land, and in 200 years fleeced so much wealth that it became amongst the poorest lands on Earth.
The British claim they did a lot of good to India. That's debatable. But one good that happened because of them was the creation of the Bombay Engineer Group and Center (BeG & C), also called Bombay Sappers. Therein lies another mini-tale.
In 1774, the East India Company's Bombay army was involved in a battle with the Marathas. Unhappy with the poor state of engineering resources available with them, they wrote a letter to the Council of the East India Company in London requesting permission to import 25 German engineers. The proposal was accepted, but the Germans declined to come. So they had to make local arrangements. Hence was born the Pioneer Lascars in 1777, the forerunners of Bombay Sappers. In 1820, a Company was formed of these engineers - Bombay Sappers and Miners. Post independence, they became a regiment of the Corps of Engineers of the Indian Army.
Apart from being experts in combat support and peacetime emergency relief activities, the Indian Army Corps of Engineers became the pioneers of adventure sports in the country, whether on land, sea or air. They are also the pioneers of Ocean cruising in India.
In the early 1980s, Indian Army Corps of Engineers decided to take up the expedition of circumnavigating the earth. In 1984, a team of officers from the Corps of Engineers flew to the U.K. to buy a boat and sail it back to India. Limited funds dictated the purchase of a second-hand sailboat. After an extensive survey, the 1970-vintage Swan 37 boat Guinevere of Sussex was shortlisted. After purchase of the yacht, it underwent minor repairs to make it sail-worthy for the voyage back to India, where it was renamed Trishna, meaning Thirst.
On 28 September 1985, Trishna set sail from the Naval Sailing Club jetty at Colaba, Mumbai with General Arun Shridhar Vaidya, then-Chief of Army Staff accompanied by Lt. Gen. P.R. Puri, Engineer-in-Chief flagging off the First Indian Expedition Around the World.
The crew consisted of a team of 10 sailors, with 6 of them on the boat at any time. This is a photograph of six that started in Mumbai.
The then Prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi, wrote a message to the crew. I found a nice copy of it.
The crew sailed 30000 nautical miles in 15 months.
Trishna received an enthusiastic welcome at the Gateway of India, Mumbai on her arrival on 10th January, 1987, where she was received by General Krishnaswamy Sundarji, the Chief of the Army Staff, accompanied by a large gathering of sailors, Service officers, friends and relatives.
The crew of Trishna was also honoured with the Order of Merit by the Ocean Cruising Club which recognised the voyage as the first circumnavigation by an Indian yacht. The Government acknowledged this achievement by announcing awards for the whole crew on Republic Day, 1987.
A commemorative postage stamp was released by India Post as a tribute to Trishna.
