But occasionally, the Navy had sail training exercises – usually a race – and Vartika signed up for it all. “I remember very vividly the first race – from Cape Town to Rio. The voyage from Goa to the race’s starting point was longer than the race itself, giving me ample time to learn the ropes,” Lt Cdr Joshi said.Soon, she was called up for a few more sailing projects, including the peninsular voyage that Captn Donde undertook to celebrate Mhadei’s milestone of completing 100,000 nautical miles.To see more women sail – this was just an experimental idea at the time, or so Lt Cdr Joshi thought at the time, unaware of the grand plans that were in motion.“It was after my journey with Captn Donde that I learned that the Navy was looking for a team to complete a circumnavigation mission. I wasted no time to express my interest to join,” Lt Cdr Joshi said.Soon, a six-member crew was put together. They included Lt Cdr Vartika Joshi, also the skipper, from Uttarakhand; Lt Cdr Pratibha Jamwal from Himachal Pradesh; Lt Cdr Aishwarya Boddapati from Telangana; Lt Cdr P Swathi from Andhra Pradesh; Lt Shourgrakpam Vijaya Devi from Manipur; and Lt Payal Gupta from Uttarakhand.Though VAdm Awathi’s initial plan was to see a woman sail solo, the Navy thought it best to send a crew instead. The crew trained on Mhadei. Since the vessel had already completed two missions, the Navy deemed that a new boat was necessary. Ratnakar Dandekar was tasked again – to build Tarini, a replica of Mhadei, but with additional facilities to accommodate a larger crew.In 2017, Tarini was commissioned by the Navy, and the third (Navika) Sagar Parikrama was underway. Unlike previous voyages, this one was an East-West circumnavigation and had four stops, the same as Donde’s. But like any voyage, this too was fraught with dangers.“We ran out of water and had to wait days for the rains to replenish our supply. Later, in the Pacific Ocean, far away from any landmass, we were battered by 70-knot wind and 10-meter waves. It lasted for 19 hours,” Lt Cdr Joshi recalled.For all its dangers, the voyage was also littered with magnificent moments. “In the second leg of the journey, we saw the Southern Lights. The whole sky was lit in green, dancing. On another occasion, it was the ocean that was lit, by bioluminescence,” Lt Cdr Joshi recalled.Tarini completed the journey on May 21, 2018, to a rousing welcome. But later that year, on November 3, the father of Indian circumnavigation, VAdm M P Awati, breathed his last.
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