India, Aug. 4 -- INSV Kaundinya, the Indian Navy's traditionally built stitched sailing ship based on depictions in the Ajanta cave paintings, may undertake an eight-week voyage from Odisha to Bali to retrace an ancient maritime route, though the expedition is yet to be finalised, economist and historian Sanjeev Sanyal said on Monday. Delivering a lecture at Jadavpur University, Sanyal said the vessel is currently stationed at the Karwar naval base in Karnataka, where its mast has been removed for the monsoon. "There is a plan of bringing it to the east coast and perhaps sailing it from Odisha to Bali, but that has not yet been worked out. The degree of difficulty is totally different. That's maybe an eight-week voyage. Right now, we have a situation in West Asia and the crew members are trained seamen and warriors. We will have to take a call on whether we can do a second voyage," he said. Also Read - Three cyber fraud suspects held at Sealdah station Sanyal said the vessel could not be brought into rivers as it was designed as a purely ocean-going vessel and has a much deeper draft than inland craft. He said the project was conceived during the Covid-19 pandemic while he was serving as Principal Economic Adviser to the Finance Minister. The aim was to recreate the earliest Indian ship that could reasonably be reconstructed using available historical evidence and demonstrate that ancient stitched-ship technology was capable of undertaking trans-oceanic voyages. The vessel's design, based on depictions of ships in the fifth-century CE Ajanta cave paintings, was developed by the Indian Navy and later validated through hydrodynamic model testing at the Department of Ocean Engineering, IIT Madras. Sanyal subsequently presented the proposal to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who approved it. Funded by the Ministry of Culture, the project was implemented by the Indian Navy in collaboration with Goa-based Hodi Innovations.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.