French fishing boat port in storm for hurt Navy officer

| | New Delhi
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French fishing boat port in storm for hurt Navy officer

Tuesday, 25 September 2018 | PNS | New Delhi

French fishing boat port in storm for hurt Navy officer

Commander Abhilash Tomy on Golden Globe Race sustained spinal injury after his boat’s mast fell in storm

Indian Navy officer Commander Abhilash Tomy, who was stranded in the Indian Ocean near Australia since Friday after his boat was damaged in a fierce storm, was rescued by a French fishing vessel Osiris on Monday.

Tomy had suffered grievous spinal injury in the mishap.  He is conscious and will be shifted to an Australian frigate expected to reach the French boat soon.

Participating in the Golden Globe Race (GGR)-solo sailboat race around the world, the 39-year-old officer’s boat Thuriya was damaged in a storm as the main mast of the vessel was ripped off by nearly 15-metre high waves, Navy spokesperson DK Sharma said here on Monday.

The mishap took place about 1,900 nautical miles off Perth, Australia.

Australian Rescue Coordination Centre at Canberra coordinated the rescue mission in cooperation with many agencies, including the Australian Defence Department and the Indian Navy.

Tomy was in the third position in the race and sailed over 10,500 nautical miles in the last 84 days, since July 1 when the competition began. On Sunday, he managed to get in touch with the organisers of the race in France through messages and requested for help as he could not move on his own.

“We are expecting an Australian frigate to reach the Osiris soon and Tomy will be shifted to it. We will decide if we have to take him to Perth or Chennai,” Sharma said.

 The Navy’s P -8 I aircraft managed to spot Tomy’s boat on Sunday and Sharma said Tomy responded by ping on EPIRB (Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon) as the aircraft was flying over him.  His rescue was closely monitored at Naval headquarters in New Delhi and the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre at Melbourne, Australia.

The first Indian to circumnavigate the globe in 2013, Commander Tomy was the only Indian participating in the race that involves a gruelling 30,000-mile solo circumnavigation of the globe.

The spokesperson said the injured officer was shifted to French vessel and it will move to take shelter at Ile Amsterdam, about 100 nautical miles north of the rescue position. The island has a small hospital.  Indian Naval ship Satpura has been sent to bring the commander, a Kirti Chakra awardee, back to India, Sharma added.

PTI added from Kochi, three days of tension gave way to joy for the Kerala-based family of Tomy as he was rescued with his father saying his son’s grit will see him come back to adventure sport.

“Praise the Lord. I am so happy...,” VC Tomy, a retired Naval personnel himself, told mediapersons near here after his son’s evacuation.   “He may be physically weak but he will be mentally stable. He will come back. I have full confidence in him,” the father said while admitting that he was tense in the last three days after hearing the news about the incident.

He also said the family members would go Australia to meet his son after he is taken there.  Thrippunithura MLA M Swaraj visited the family and said the entire neighbourhood heaved a sigh of relief on hearing the news about Tomy’s rescue.

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