New Delhi, December 28 (ANI): As INSV Kaundinya prepares to embark on its maiden voyage on December 29, the sailing vessel stands as a tribute to India’s ancient shipbuilding traditions and its enduring maritime connections across the Indian Ocean world.
Sharing details ahead of the voyage in a post on X, the official handle for INSV Kaundinya said the vessel would retrace historic Indian transoceanic trade routes while sailing from India to Muscat, Oman, showcasing the legacy of stitched shipbuilding and India’s timeless maritime heritage.
In an official statement, the Ministry of Defence said the Indian Navy’s pioneering stitched sailing vessel will undertake its maiden overseas voyage on December 29, 2025. The ship will be flagged off from Porbandar in Gujarat and sail to Muscat, symbolically retracing maritime routes that connected India with the wider Indian Ocean region for millennia.
Inspired by depictions of ancient Indian ships, INSV Kaundinya has been constructed entirely using traditional stitched-plank techniques. Unlike modern vessels, its wooden planks are stitched together using coconut coir rope and sealed with natural resins, reflecting a shipbuilding tradition once prevalent along India’s coastline and across the Indian Ocean. This technology enabled Indian mariners to undertake long-distance voyages to West Asia, Africa, and Southeast Asia long before the advent of modern navigation and metallurgy.
The project was undertaken under a tripartite memorandum of understanding between the Ministry of Culture, the Indian Navy, and M/s Hodi Innovations as part of efforts to revive indigenous knowledge systems. Built by traditional artisans under the guidance of master shipwright Babu Sankaran, and supported by extensive research, design, and testing by the Indian Navy and academic institutions, the vessel has been certified as fully seaworthy and capable of oceanic navigation.
Named after the legendary mariner Kaundinya, believed to have sailed from India to Southeast Asia in ancient times, the ship reflects India’s historic role as a maritime nation.
Historian Sanjeev Sanyal, a member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, said in an interview with ANI that beyond its technical significance, the project carries a broader historical objective.
“Indian history has often been portrayed as passive, overlooking centuries of maritime activity, trade, and exploration. Indians were not sitting around waiting for conquerors to give them civilisation. We had adventurers, mercenaries, traders, and sailors. Long before the Phoenicians, Indians were sailing across the Indian Ocean,” Sanyal said.
As the vessel sets sail toward Oman, he added, it carries not only a crew and canvas sails but also a renewed effort to reclaim a forgotten chapter of India’s oceanic past.
The Ministry of Defence noted that INSV Kaundinya is based on a fifth-century CE ship depicted in the Ajanta Cave paintings. Over several months, artisans painstakingly stitched the wooden planks of the hull using coir rope, coconut fiber, and natural resin. The ship was launched in February 2025 in Goa.
The Indian Navy played a central role in overseeing the vessel’s design, technical validation, and construction. With no surviving blueprints of such ships, the design was inferred from iconographic sources and validated through hydrodynamic model testing at IIT Madras and internal technical assessments.
The ministry added that the vessel incorporates several culturally significant features, including sails bearing motifs of the Gandabherunda and the Sun, a sculpted Simha Yali on the bow, and a Harappan-style stone anchor on the deck. Each element evokes the rich maritime traditions of ancient India, underscoring the country’s long-standing legacy of maritime exploration, trade, and cultural exchange.
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