Panaji
Two retired veterans, Lt Col Srinivas Kumar and Capt CDNV Prasad — childhood friends and batchmates from the National Defence Academy (NDA) — are on an extraordinary sea journey aboard their unique yacht, Tystie. The junk-rigged yacht is currently crossing the oceans on a self-funded voyage, with the hope of eventually docking at her new home port, Visakhapatnam. Their adventure is a lifelong dream come true and reflects their pioneering spirit, aiming to inspire ocean cruising in India.
The two veterans first learned to sail together in Enterprise class dinghies at the NDA and later took part in Seabird rallies. After retiring from service, they revived their shared dream of ocean cruising. Despite delays due to the pandemic, they finally began their journey aboard Tystie, which started from New Zealand. One of their earlier stops was from Porbandar to Goa.
Tystie is a rare, one-of-a-kind yacht built in the UK using a glass-over-plywood design. What makes her special is her junk rig — a setup with no standing rigging to support the mast, making her low-cost and easy to maintain. This practical design has already seen over 80,000 nautical miles at sea.
The yacht is currently in Fiji after a six-day halt at Suva. “Our journey continues as we plan to move to smaller islands before heading to Vanuatu between June 15 and 20. We anticipate reaching Visakhapatnam in October,” shares Lt Col Srinivas Kumar. He adds, “While from New Zealand to Fiji, we didn’t see much fishes and only six birds, implying human actions of pollution and illegal, rampant fishing that has taken toll on nature’s fine balance of aquatic, marine life.”
Reflecting on the occasion of World Oceans Day, Lt Col Srinivas says, “I heard tomorrow is Ocean Day. We have been living on board a yacht for the past 50 days. We travelled some distance and all in the Pacific. So I thought I would share some thoughts very briefly. While at Opua NZ, we stayed in a river mouth. After every rain, the water used to be very muddy and stinky. We asked around and found out that NZ has resorted to major deforestation for the sake of rearing sheep and cows. This has led to extensive siltation and the stink is the excessive animal excreta being washed down to the river. The only birds we saw were skuas or terns, basically scavenger birds. We have only been to the North island, so not sure of the South island.”
He goes on to share, “As for fish, we saw none at NZ or for our entire trip from NZ to Fiji. We discussed this issue several times and felt saddened because of the excessive fishing by humans. We saw no life in the 2000 km we sailed in the Pacific. Maybe it is not normal but true. We saw a total of six birds. Three complete black small size birds for about 10 days. They used to be seen at 8 am and disappear at 4 pm. We missed them for the last part when they didn’t show up. Towards Fiji we saw another three birds black with white bellies. That’s it. No fish, so no birds.”
He further adds, “We duo expected to see whales and dolphins flying fish etc. I think the Kaps and Chinese overdid fishing. About 100 miles short of Fiji, when we got stuck with no wind, we wanted to have a swim at sea. When we were about to plunge, we noticed a lot of floating and submerged floats, some of which felt dirty and reclusive. So no plunge into the Pacific! Near Fiji, we found a lot of dead sea-vegetation. They were like small floating islands and quite a bit stuck to our rudders. Today after a long time we found a school of fish and a flock of birds trying to fish. Felt happy seeing them. We had to move through them and the birds flew away. We were wondering whether we disturbed the birds or saved the fish!”
