‘At sea, you don’t have to worry about what other people think of you’

It was Sir Francis Chichester who said, “a wild horse will not drag me back to the horror of the Southern Ocean, where the height of the waves is not measured in feet and inches, but in fearful increments”. After sailing the Southern Ocean, the famous adventurer, circumnavigator and solo aviator, Commander Abhilash Tommy (retd)has trained two female Navy officers for global circumnavigation since October 2. In that quote from City Hall with TOIhe talks about loneliness, fear, family and perspective on life

What made you go into this solo cruise travel?

As a child, I was an introvert. I spend a lot of time with books. People used to say I couldn’t do anything.
I joined the Navy because I wanted to fly and sail. The reason for this is because two things happened when I was a child. A plane from my father’s base crashed. The pilot on board is a Malayali. It happened in Kochi, and the body was not found for days. My mother reads this news to me every day. This incident inspired two people to join the Indian Navy: Me and the deceased pilot’s sister. Almost 30-35 years later, when I had an accident during the 2018 Golden Globe race.The Indian Navy decided to send a Boeing P8-I maritime surveillance plane to search for me and the decision was made by the deceased pilot’s sister. He was a flag officer Goa areaRear Admiral Philipose Pynumootil.
The second incident that inspired me to sail was the Trishna expedition where six Army officers circumnavigated the globe at 19 points. It was made into a documentary which aired on DD.

You have been at sea too long. Why are you doing this?

All in all, I had about 450 days at sea. Going on a cruise with someone on your boat is like going on your honeymoon with your in-laws. That’s just not true! By being alone, I’m not talking about the phone, there’s no one to help you. Changes begin to occur after two or three weeks. If you voluntarily want to be alone, the first week or two is to cut the umbilical cord with the world. It’s tough, but you’ll understand my perspective, only after you’ve experienced it.

Did you find it difficult when you returned to re-adapt to society? It can’t be easy.

In society, you are governed by many rules and society dictates many things to 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. In the sea, there is no external stimulation.
That’s when you start to discover that your life in society is governed by many rules that you probably don’t agree with. Guilt, morality, sin, lies, opinions… all these concepts are introduced into your life. However, the rules are not important. They are important because society needs them to function.
At sea, you don’t have to worry about what other people think of you or whether you look good in these clothes or not. There is a kind of freedom that you experience.
The concept of time and space slowly began to dissolve.
Now, when you come back, you are reduced to a very basic state. But after a while, the wall that had disappeared, returned.

How will your family be when you leave?

It was very difficult for them, especially because the sea was still unknown. It’s wild, it’s rough. If you are going to a place like that, what about your family? You are husband, father, son. I have a role and a responsibility, and if I don’t go back, children lose their fathers, husbands lose their husbands. All this cannot be changed. Kind of stressful. And on top of that, I have some good neighbors that add more stress.
When I was preparing the boat in the Netherlands (for the Golden Globe Race, 2022), he got angry with my wife and filed a police complaint. I had to leave everything and come back to sort it out. It adds to the stress and that one month cost me the first position in the race.

Is there any kind of hesitation? Have you ever thought about it, even for a few minutes?

Not. Victory for me is not about going around the world endlessly. For me, there are two things: The boat must be as good as when we started, and not for a moment I have to ask myself, why am I doing this? Because when you ask this question, you start to construct an alternative reality.

In the vast ocean, when you can’t see anything beyond and face the waves so high, your fear will get the better of you.

?
Fear is important because if you are not afraid, you will kill yourself in two days. Fear helps keep you alive. But too much fear paralyzes you. Too much anxiety is paralyzing. When your mind tries to reproduce fear, it tries to help you. But when you cross the threshold, it will paralyze you. As a sailor, my first job is to control these emotions to where they help me but don’t hinder me.

One of the goals of all these expeditions is to create a culture of sailing. India is surrounded by water, but the country is blind to the sea. Do you have any influence on this?

I can only give anecdotal evidence, I can’t guarantee it, but when I came back after the first circumnavigation, what I heard was that before there was a cruise camp for children, maybe five or six. But after the circumnavigation, more than 100 children entered. I am probably the first person who has a sailing yacht in India that is registered under the new rules, and took it to France to go for a race. I think there is a change.

What can be done to cultivate a sailing culture and how can we improve the policy?

Currently, there is a shortage of places where ships can be planted. For example, the government introduced a policy where each port must set aside a small space to keep yachts with a separate entrance. This will be a good start because people who want to own a boat will find a safe place to store it. If it offers a 10-year duty and excise-free period for importing used yachts, it will give a big initial boost to ownership.
This creates a domino effect. Each yacht will generate five to ten other projects. It will lead to other industries taking up. First, a little push is required. Home boat builders should be given incentives. When I built a boat here in Goa, the tax was 31%. Twenty-eight percent of this is GST and the rest is cess and surcharges.
My ship is worth Rs 2 crore, but I have to pay tax of Rs 62 lakh. If the same vessel has to be registered as a commercial vessel, only 5% GST will apply. Differences of this kind must be eliminated.
Even in the registration process, many changes can be made, I bought a Bayanat boat from France. I sent a letter with the details of the boat and the purchase agreement to the authorities in Poland, and they registered the boat online. Try it here and it’s a one-year process to get your boat registered.

You start learning about marine pollution. What did they find?

I used to collect 10ml of water sample, mark it with the date, and when I finished the circumnavigation, I sent it for analysis. The Pacific Ocean is the largest ocean on the planet and in the middle of it is plastic. I’m talking about south at 50 degrees. Humans do not go there. The ship didn’t come in, but there was plastic.
The plastic obviously got into the fish and from the fish it went somewhere else. From being carbon-based, we may become polycarbon-based organisms.