Harbour trial for 'Samudrayaan'.

Preparations are on board to realise India's flagship manned deep sea exploration in 2025 in a homemade, world class submersible 'Matsya 6000'.

The harbour trial for Samudrayaan, a three member deep sea mission that is scheduled for 2025 will be conducted sometime in Mar-Apr this year in Madras, says National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT). It is an ambitious project of the Ministry of Earth Sciences and is being implemented as part of the Rs.4,800 cr 'Deep Ocean Mission'. NIOT is an autonomous society under the ministry.

Following the harbour trial, the NIOT will plan shallow water exploration at a depth of 500 mts before the final deep sea mission at 6,000 mts some time next year. The shallow water exploration is being planned in the Bay of Bengal in a steel submersible.

The NIOT has recruited a former naval officer to pilot the Samudrayaan exploration. It is training some ocean scientists as pilots who will conduct deep sea exploration. In the latter half of the year, the delivery of titanium alloy human sphere, which will seat the three ocean explorers from the ISRO. Syntactic foams for the manned chamber - are being imported and delivered - as it is a mixture of billions of microscopic hollow glass or ceramic spheres in epoxy or plastic resin are widely used in submarines because of their remarkable buoyancy and strength.

Matsya 6000 will be tested and certified by DNV (world class Norwegian classification society and a recognised advisor for the maritime industry) to go down 6,000 mts inside the Indian Ocean for a duration of 12 hrs though it is being developed and tested for 96-hour endurance.

Matsya will take three hours to go down 6,000 mts and three hours to come up, with six hours for scientific exploration of the sea.

The Samudrayaan mission will bring India on the world map of manned deep sea explorations in indigenous vehicles after the US, Russia, France, Japan and China.

Tailpiece.

Got up at a half past 5, the chores and was ready by a quarter to 10.

The courtyard interlocking tiles were painted with Indigo paint and by evening, the paintwork for The Quarterdeck was completed!

A quiet evening, thereafter.