: Sail training ship INS Tarangini on Monday left the naval wharf here for a voyage lasting seven and a half months through Europe where it will take part in tall ship races.
Vice-Admiral Sunil Lanba, Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the Southern Naval Command, flagged off the ship, which will log some 17,000 nautical miles during the voyage.
As already reported by The Hindu , the ship will also participate in the first-ever sailing race with Royal Oman Navy’s newly-inducted tall ship Shahbab Al-Oman while on return from Muscat to Kochi.
A defence spokesperson said this year’s tall ship races would be conducted primarily off the coast of the UK, Norway, Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands. About 300 sail ships of various sizes from all over the world would take part in the events. “Tarangini forms a part of Class-A Sail Ships, the largest of the sailing fleet. During this voyage, the Indian trainees would also get an opportunity to sail on foreign vessels as part of exchange of trainees,” he said.
Tarangini, a three-masted barque, was built in Goa. It recently underwent a refit at the Cochin Shipyard in preparation for the Lokayan-15, as the voyage is called. The ship has a complement of six officers and 40 sailors besides 30 trainees.
“As many as 150 trainees would be trained on board the ship during the voyage in separate batches,” Commander Gaurav Gautam, Commanding Officer of Tarangini, said.
“The Navy believes that training onboard these ships is the best method of instilling among the trainees the indefinable ‘sea-sense’ and respect for the elements of nature which are inseparable from safe and successful seafaring,” said the Navy spokesperson.
During the voyage, the ship will call at 17 ports in 14 countries demonstrating the broadening reach of the Indian Navy in securing the maritime environment and extending a hand of friendship to the Navies of the region. Understandably, the Lokayan-15 is on the theme, ‘Tacking for a Broader Reach’.
