And finally, the ship was docked along with an Offshore Supply Vessel(OSV) in the building dock of the Cochin Shipyard. It was a long stay of 86 days, during which the ship had to be floated after about 45 days to undock the OSV, only to sit back on the chocks after the evolution was over. The work on the shafts was intricate wherein the piano wire method was used to verify the alignments, supplemented with the optical sighting method.
I was excited by the fact that the ship was gonna be active soon and interacted with the shipyard workers on the job and they, too, warmed up to my curiosity and took pains to explain to me the details. Often, I used to return home late because it took time for me to understand the nuances. The shipyard and the command were also closely monitoring the progress of work because the successful outcome was a must for all the stake holders.
We put out to sea for trials and though there were minor hiccups, it went off fine. There were quite a few sailings done off the coast of Kochi but I was itching for something substantial and soon, came the exercise of a composite survey of the subsurface(Geological and the immediate water layer), surface and atmospheric surveys of a large chunk of area off the port of Visakhapatnam that had strategic import and I was briefed about it by both, the command and the Naval Physical and Oceanographic Laboratory(NPOL). I remember the Chief of Staff's, post briefing caution, "Son, don't hesitate to return if the machinery misbehaves!".......... Did I see a look of doubt in his eyes about me and my ship pulling it off?
And finally, on a bright sunny day, we set sail for Visakhapatnam and I was on cloud 9. There were a few emergencies enroute but each one of them was sorted out because prior to sailing, I'd told my boys that come what may we'd to do it. After the first day, the ship had settled down as we rounded Kanyakumari, did that stretch of ocean sailing, made landfall on the western Galle seaface of Sri Lanka, passed through the highly dense international traffic lane off its southern coast, shaped to a north eastern course to finally fetch up at the port of Madras. After a day's stay, we headed for the Sacramento point from where the final course to Visakhapatnam was fine tuned and eventually entered harbour on a Sunday morning.
By Tuesday, the entire team of scientists and their equipment, supplementing the on board ones, had embarked on board and the provisioning of logistics was completed from the base support organisations. Meanwhile, I'd completed all the ceremonial calls of the senior officers of the command before I sailed for the exercise that was to last for a fortnight.
That we finished our survey within 12 days showed the high levels of motivation prevalent within the ship and as I shaped course to return to harbour, I made that historical signal and I quote, "Maiden scientific mission successfully completed". It was an exhilarating feeling and I believe, during the command meeting at Kochi, next morning, the CinC had read out my signal aloud and the entire lot stood up and thumped the desks for the news that many of them thought they would never hear!
The poignant moment was when the Director, NPOL had flown down to personally congratulate my team and taking me to a side, said, "Congratulations Captain. I knew that you'd it in you and I'd never taken the fact that you weren't an ASW specialist seriously!" I'd also made a copy of the signal to VAdm AR Tandon, who was the CinC West by then because it was he who'd made this possible with VAdm Inderjit Bedi sitting as the Vice Chief - both closely aware of my predicament as well as my requirement!
We returned to Kochi, soon after, via the port of Madras and around Sri Lanka and once in Kochi, my officers and men moved with their chests out and heads held high. Everywhere in the command they went, the respect and admiration that they got made them feel that they'd achieved something real great. I'd also gone and met Cmde Bawa, the CMD of the Cochin Shipyard to thank him and his words still resonate in my ears, "You know young man, we'd to do it for you because you deserve it". Meanwhile, I wasn't resting on my laurels and I wanted to prove that it was no flash in the pan and was looking for the next interesting assignment!
Tailpiece.
I was told by an ex-cadet of mine, who was now in the personnel directorate at the naval headquarters in Delhi, that there was a steady trickle of requests to be posted on board INS Sagardhwani. I'd turned the tide around......
I was excited by the fact that the ship was gonna be active soon and interacted with the shipyard workers on the job and they, too, warmed up to my curiosity and took pains to explain to me the details. Often, I used to return home late because it took time for me to understand the nuances. The shipyard and the command were also closely monitoring the progress of work because the successful outcome was a must for all the stake holders.
We put out to sea for trials and though there were minor hiccups, it went off fine. There were quite a few sailings done off the coast of Kochi but I was itching for something substantial and soon, came the exercise of a composite survey of the subsurface(Geological and the immediate water layer), surface and atmospheric surveys of a large chunk of area off the port of Visakhapatnam that had strategic import and I was briefed about it by both, the command and the Naval Physical and Oceanographic Laboratory(NPOL). I remember the Chief of Staff's, post briefing caution, "Son, don't hesitate to return if the machinery misbehaves!".......... Did I see a look of doubt in his eyes about me and my ship pulling it off?
And finally, on a bright sunny day, we set sail for Visakhapatnam and I was on cloud 9. There were a few emergencies enroute but each one of them was sorted out because prior to sailing, I'd told my boys that come what may we'd to do it. After the first day, the ship had settled down as we rounded Kanyakumari, did that stretch of ocean sailing, made landfall on the western Galle seaface of Sri Lanka, passed through the highly dense international traffic lane off its southern coast, shaped to a north eastern course to finally fetch up at the port of Madras. After a day's stay, we headed for the Sacramento point from where the final course to Visakhapatnam was fine tuned and eventually entered harbour on a Sunday morning.
By Tuesday, the entire team of scientists and their equipment, supplementing the on board ones, had embarked on board and the provisioning of logistics was completed from the base support organisations. Meanwhile, I'd completed all the ceremonial calls of the senior officers of the command before I sailed for the exercise that was to last for a fortnight.
That we finished our survey within 12 days showed the high levels of motivation prevalent within the ship and as I shaped course to return to harbour, I made that historical signal and I quote, "Maiden scientific mission successfully completed". It was an exhilarating feeling and I believe, during the command meeting at Kochi, next morning, the CinC had read out my signal aloud and the entire lot stood up and thumped the desks for the news that many of them thought they would never hear!
The poignant moment was when the Director, NPOL had flown down to personally congratulate my team and taking me to a side, said, "Congratulations Captain. I knew that you'd it in you and I'd never taken the fact that you weren't an ASW specialist seriously!" I'd also made a copy of the signal to VAdm AR Tandon, who was the CinC West by then because it was he who'd made this possible with VAdm Inderjit Bedi sitting as the Vice Chief - both closely aware of my predicament as well as my requirement!
We returned to Kochi, soon after, via the port of Madras and around Sri Lanka and once in Kochi, my officers and men moved with their chests out and heads held high. Everywhere in the command they went, the respect and admiration that they got made them feel that they'd achieved something real great. I'd also gone and met Cmde Bawa, the CMD of the Cochin Shipyard to thank him and his words still resonate in my ears, "You know young man, we'd to do it for you because you deserve it". Meanwhile, I wasn't resting on my laurels and I wanted to prove that it was no flash in the pan and was looking for the next interesting assignment!
Tailpiece.
I was told by an ex-cadet of mine, who was now in the personnel directorate at the naval headquarters in Delhi, that there was a steady trickle of requests to be posted on board INS Sagardhwani. I'd turned the tide around......
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