‘At sea, you don’t have to worry about what anyone else is thinking about you’

It was Sir Francis Chichester who said, “Wild horses will not draw me back to the fearful Southern Ocean, where the height of the waves is measured not in feet and inches, but in surges of fear”. Famous adventurers, solo sailors and aviators who traveled the Southern Ocean, Commander Abhilash Tommy (retired)has trained two women naval officers for the global circumnavigation starting from October 2. in these parts Townhall with TOIHe talks about loneliness, fear, his family and his attitude towards life

What inspired you to go solo? sail Trips?

As a child, I was an introvert. I spent a lot of time with books. People used to say that I couldn’t do anything.
I joined the Navy because I wanted to fly and sail. The reason behind this was two incidents that happened when I was a child. A plane had crashed near my father’s base. The pilot on board the plane was a Malayali. This happened in Kochi and the body could not be found for several days. My mother used to read these news to me every day. This incident inspired two people to join the Indian Navy: me and the younger brother of the pilot who died. About 30-35 years later, when I met with an accident during the 2018 Golden Globe RaceThe Indian Navy It was decided to send a Boeing P8-I maritime reconnaissance aircraft to search for me and this decision was taken by the younger brother of the pilot who had died. was the flag officer of Goa regionRear Admiral Philipose Paynumoottil.
The second event that inspired me to take up sailing was the Trishna expedition where six army officers traveled around the world with 19 stops. It was made into a documentary which was broadcast on DD.

You have been alone at sea for a long time. Why do you do this?

In total, I got about 450 days alone at sea. Going on your boat with someone else is like going on a honeymoon with your in-laws. This is simply not true! By being alone, I’m talking about not having anyone to help you, not having anyone to call. Changes start happening after two to three weeks. When you voluntarily want to be alone, the first week or two are all about cutting your umbilical cord with the world. It’s stressful, but you’ll understand my point of view only after experiencing it.

Do you have difficulty re-adapting to society when you return? It could not be easier.

In society, you are governed by a lot of rules and society decides a lot of things for you. You don’t know who you are because you never spend time with yourself. Your entire existence in society is a reaction to the outside world. There is no external stimulation in the ocean.
That’s when you start to realize that your life in society is governed by so many rules that you probably didn’t agree with. Crime, morality, sin, lies, opinions… all these concepts are introduced into your life. However, the rules are not unimportant. They are important because society needs to function.
At sea, you don’t have to worry about what anyone else is thinking about you or whether you look good in these clothes. There is a kind of freedom that you feel.
The concepts of time and space gradually begin to merge.
Now, when you come back, you come into a very primal state of mind. But after some time the walls that had gone away come back.

How does your family cope when you are away?

This is extremely stressful for them, especially because the ocean is still unknown. It’s wild, it’s rough. If you’re going to a place like that, what about your family? You are a husband, a father, a son. I have roles and responsibilities to play, and if I don’t come back, a child loses his father, a wife loses her husband. All this is irreparable. The type of stress is tremendous. And besides, I had some wonderful neighbors which added even more stress.
When I was preparing my boat in the Netherlands (for the Golden Globe Race, 2022), he had a fight with my wife and lodged a police complaint. I had to drop everything and come back to solve it. This increased the stress and because of that one month I got the first place in the race.

Was there any hesitation? Have you ever reconsidered even for a minute?

No, winning for me does not mean traveling around the world non-stop. For me, it was two things: the boat should be as good as it was the day we set out, and I should not for a moment ask myself why am I doing this? Because the moment you ask this question, you start creating alternative realities.

In the vast ocean, when you can’t see anything beyond and have to face high waves, does fear ever overcome you?

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Fear is important because if you are fearless, you will kill yourself in two days. Fear helps you survive. But too much fear paralyzes you. Too much worry is paralysis. When your brain is trying to create fear, it is trying to help you. But when it crosses the threshold, it will paralyze you. As a sailor, my first job is to keep these emotions under control, where they are helping me but not hindering me.

One objective of all these expeditions is to create a culture of sailing. India is surrounded by water on all sides, but there is a kind of sea blindness in the country. Have you made any impact in this regard?

I can only offer anecdotal evidence, I can’t confirm it, but when I came back after my first voyage, I heard that earlier when there were sailing camps for kids, maybe five or six people would come. But after my voyage, more than 100 kids signed up. I am probably the first person in India to own a sailing yacht, which was registered under the new rules, and took it to France to participate in the races. I think change is happening.

What can be done to develop a culture of sailing and how can we improve policies?

Right now, there is a shortage of places where we can tie boats. Suppose the government introduced a policy whereby each port would have to have a small space with a separate entrance to accommodate boats. This will be a good start as anyone who wants to own a boat will have a safe place to keep it. If it provides a period of 10 years during which there will be no customs and excise duties on import of second hand boats, it will provide a big initial boost to ownership.
This creates a domino effect. Each boat will create five to ten more jobs. This will give impetus to other industries also. A little push has to be made in the beginning. Domestic boat manufacturers need to be encouraged. When I built my boat here in Goa, the tax was 31%. Twenty-eight percent of this was GST and the rest was cess and surcharges.
The cost of my boat was Rs 2 crore, but I had to pay tax of Rs 62 lakh. If the same boat were registered as commercial, only 5% GST would be charged. There is a need to remove such inequality.
Even the registration process can bring a lot of changes. I bought my boat from Binaut, France. I sent a letter to an authority in Poland with details of the boat and the purchase agreement and they registered the boat online. Try doing that here and it’s a one-year process to get your boat registered.

You set out to study marine pollution. what did you get?

I used to collect 10 ml water samples, date them, and send them off for analysis when I completed my swim. The Pacific Ocean is the largest ocean on the planet and in the middle of that ocean is plastic. I’m talking south at 50 degrees. Humans do not go there. Ships don’t go there, but we had plastic there too.
That plastic is clearly going into the fish and from the fish it’s going somewhere else. We are probably moving from carbon based to poly-carbon based organisms.