Muscat [Oman], January 14 (ANI): The Indian Navy’s indigenously built traditional stitched sailing vessel INSV Kaundinya received a water salute on Wednesday as it completed its voyage from Gujarat’s Porbandar to Muscat in Oman.
The ship had departed from Porbandar on December 29, 2025.
The expedition was skippered by Commander Vikas Sheoran, while Commander Y Hemant Kumar, who has been associated with the project since its conceptualization, served as the officer in charge of the expedition. The crew comprised four officers and 13 naval sailors.
Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council member Sanjeev Sanyal, who was part of the crew, shared daily updates about the voyage on social media.
INSV Kaundinya is a stitched sail ship based on a fifth-century CE vessel depicted in the paintings of the Ajanta Caves. The project was initiated through a tripartite agreement signed in July 2023 between the Ministry of Culture, the Indian Navy, and M/s Hodi Innovations, with funding provided by the Ministry of Culture.
Following the keel laying in September 2023, the vessel’s construction was undertaken using traditional stitching methods by a team of skilled artisans from Kerala, led by master shipwright Babu Sankaran. Over several months, wooden planks were painstakingly stitched on the hull using coir rope, coconut fiber, and natural resin. The ship was launched in February 2025 at Goa.
The Indian Navy played a central role in overseeing the design, technical validation, and construction process. With no surviving blueprints of such vessels, the design was inferred from iconographic sources. The Navy collaborated with the shipbuilder to recreate the hull form and traditional rigging, ensuring validation through hydrodynamic model testing at the Department of Ocean Engineering, IIT Madras, along with internal technical assessments.
The newly inducted vessel incorporates several culturally significant features. Its sails display motifs of the Gandabherunda and the Sun, its bow bears a sculpted Simha Yali, and a symbolic Harappan-style stone anchor adorns the deck, evoking the rich maritime traditions of ancient India.
Named after Kaundinya, the legendary Indian mariner who sailed across the Indian Ocean to Southeast Asia, the ship serves as a tangible symbol of India’s long-standing traditions of maritime exploration, trade, and cultural exchange. (ANI)
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