(This story was originally published on 27 April 2023. It has been republished from The Quint's archives as Cdr Abhilash Tomy completes the Golden Globe Race, finishing second.)
“It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.” — William Ernest Henley.
At 12:49 pm on 22 March 2022, a navy veteran and solo circumnavigator Cdr Abhilash Tomy KC, NM (Retd) wrote a series of tweets announcing his participation in the Golden Globe Race 2022, a solo, unassisted, circumnavigation of the Earth on sails that draws participants back to the golden age of ‘one sailor, one boat facing the great oceans of the world’. He traced the origins of the race, the challenges it posed, and reasons for throwing his hat in the ring, making a small mention of his accident when racing at third position in GGR 2018. To his 11000+ ‘followers’ on Twitter, he asked for nothing more than “wish me luck”.
About a year later, as I write, his tweet had garnered around 1040 “likes” and 197 “retweets” on Twitter — an abysmally low social media catchment for a nation with over 7500 km of coastline, a rich maritime legacy, and a Twitter base of over 27 million. Indian media of 2022 hardly gave any coverage to this audacious Indian who had then only recently hung his whites to set out on the most important voyage of his life.
Perhaps they underestimated his resolve now that he had swallowed the anchor. A former naval aviator and Dornier pilot, Abhilash could have easily done his pilot license, applied for a cockpit job, and walked the beaten path of “job security”, “high salary” and “stability”. But such people hardly make history.
Today, his sails have achieved far more than what his wings would ever earn.
Golden Globe Race (GGR) Challenges
Take a moment to fathom the challenges GGR contestants face. Rightly called “the voyage of Madmen” in the GGR 2018 official movie, it is the longest event of human endurance on Planet Earth; also its slowest race of attrition. The race requires one to “sail like it’s 1968”, on a sailboat under 36 feet, using only the equipment that was available to mariners of that era. This rules out almost everything we take for granted today -- no apps, no GPS, no moving maps, no autopilot.
Navigation is purely visual or celestial — ‘shooting down’ the sun as it crosses its own meridian (MerPass) or heavenly bodies using a sextant. Mariners carefully watch wind patterns and the barometer; a fall in pressure over the diurnal usually precedes a storm. There are areas in the world’s oceans, even seasoned mariners on massive steel hulks balk at.
With no modern weather-alerting systems onboard, Tomy encountered many such storms and estimated their dangerous/navigable semicircles with just a wind vane and barometer. At the end of the day, this is a race, and the route to a podium finish means a careful selection between ‘safety course’ and ‘best course’.
Tomy has been out at sea for 234 days and counting. He has traversed all major oceans, crossed all the major capes and the Equator (thrice), bearing the brunt of world climatology, solely with reference to a barometer, sextant, charts, and a rudimentary compass. There is no one to hand over the helm to; no lookouts; no landmarks; only endless water all around. When night falls, the ocean drapes itself in a black cloak where at the eye-height of the Bayanat, one can barely see a few cables out. Weather, fatigue, risk of collision, hallucinations, sleep deprivation — all these are constant companions, not for days but months.
You are your own boatswain, plumber, electrician, cook, and captain. Often, the nearest land may be a few kilometers vertically below the keel (Davy Jones’ locker). Get the magnitude of the challenge?
Expectedly, only a handful of humans have been able to complete such a voyage — way lesser than the number of Everesters and spacewalkers. This is Tomy’s second shot at solo circumnavigation. His first attempt took 151 days on the naval sailboat Mhadei (Sagar Parikrama 2, Nov 1, 2012 – Mar 31, 2013), sailing around the earth, south of the five Great Capes of the Southern Hemisphere, alone and without stops. That earned him a Kirti Chakra, Tenzing Norgay Adventure Award, and Macgregor Medal, among others. The GGR rules are tougher by an order of magnitude, largely due to the usable technologies. Sailing at third position, his first attempt at GGR 2018 ended abruptly after his boat Thuriya got dismasted and knocked down in a storm in one of the world’s remotest locations.
Qayamat se Bayanat tak
Abhilash Tomy is a great man. In a nation with a rich maritime legacy, one would expect the entire country to be tracking and celebrating his intrepid voyage. But here we are, beating down the gates at IPL venues while Abhilash charts his way to history in the world’s most grueling ocean sailing race. Ask any Indian — even the well-heeled ones that have traveled the world, taken cruises, and lived in multi-million dollar seaside homes — “Who is Abhilash Tomy?”, and they may likely roll their eyes indifferently or turn to Google.
Such is the nature of our funding for a marine sport that Tomy, soon after his voluntary retirement from the navy, could only raise about 10 lakh rupees against his crowdfunding target of 4 crore rupees for the GGR 22 attempt. In a country with the world’s third-highest number of billionaires and ‘Unicorns’, Tomy’s ‘start-up’ idea of making maritime history could not find any “angel investors” in India. Let that sink in.
Veteran naval officer and former commander-in-chief Vice Admiral Jaggi Bedi had this to say about Abhilash in the context of support/coverage he has received: “Probably the greatest and most courageous sailor produced by India has been totally ignored by the press and electronic media which is drunk with trivia and never-ending shenanigans of the political class. If any proof of sea blindness was required, this is it.”
It is a damning indictment of how little a seafaring nation of 1.4bn has contributed to this intrepid sailor’s epic voyage. A few articles in print and electronic media did follow, but the overall response has been tepid and uninspiring. We seem to have become a country of landlubbers with acute maritime cataracts.
Seaman’s Wit and indomitable resilience
Not affected by any of this, Tomy joked during one of the calls with the organizers after he was savaged by the tumultuous seas around Cape Horn “I was just thinking that if I spend another month, I will have a baby because it would be nine months“. In his final satellite call before the race ends, he humbly thanked in chaste Hindi, fellow Indians for supporting him through the last eight months, with the hope that his story would make you understand the importance of the navy that silently guards us against invisible enemies.
“Hope you will support me till the race is over. After that, you can go back to cricket or Bollywood or whatever it is that interests you“, he joked wryly with the sagacity of a man who clearly has his hands on the pulse of the nation even after being out at sea for eight months.
One hopes a Khel Ratna, Arjuna, or, at the least, a Padma award awaits this pathbreaking Indian. In fact, one hopes that we will do better, set aside funds for future Tomys, and institute an award in his name that recognizes such unique achievements at sea. It should also serve as notice to a politics and spectacle-obsessed nation that often the most important races are not the fastest.
“Less is More”
Yet, the most abiding message of Tomy’s voyages has been “less is more”. In a short video posted on his website, Tomy recounts how he managed his maiden circumnavigation with the most minimal of human requirements only to reach Mumbai and find hoardings that celebrated human consumption. He also talks about how another legendary sailor, his senior and hero of Sagar Parikrama-1, Cdr Dilip Donde, handed over the Mhadei with two simple words “All yours”. His evocative message to review our materialism and leave behind a clean, less cluttered planet for the next generation with the same message “all yours” will tug at your hearts. It is the kind of simple, earthy wisdom the planet needs more of.
It was the Indian Navy that sowed the seed of adventure in Tomy’s mind and he uses every opportunity to highlight how naval upbringing and training helped him get up here. The same service is presently conducting a Sam No Varuna motor car expedition on a fleet of fuel-guzzling SUVs even as Tomy’s humble ocean voyage on sails reaches culmination.
To those who question why or why not, I simply say: maybe there’s space for both. What is more depressing is the utter lack of interest or even a word of encouragement from a galaxy of leaders, sports persons, and billionaires for Tomy, as if this is some kind of private water sports adventure he has set upon.
But mark my words. For all the sporadic press and episodic accolade, Abhilash is getting presently, everyone and their uncle will soon be making a beeline to felicitate and own him, most of whom never bothered to invest even a dime in his start-up, The Bayanat.
Hopefully, a generation that can’t get around their own cities without Google Maps will get inspired by this audacious sailor who set out to circumnavigate the globe armed with a sextant, barometer, titanium in his spine, and gold in his heart.
(The author is an ex-navy experimental test pilot. He is dual ATP-rated on Bell 412 and AW139 helicopters and a synthetic flight instructor on ALH Dhruv. He can be reached on Twitter @realkaypius. Views are personal. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)
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