N.Z.-India boats to tackle the Ganges

Press, 10 June 1977, Page 4

N.Z.-India boats to tackle the Ganges

A member of the combined Indian and New Zealand team that will attempt a jet boat expedition up the Ganges River later this year, arrived in Christchurch yesterday.

Captain Mohan S. Kohli, a former captain in the Indian Navy and an experienced mountaineer, is visiting New Zealand at the invitation of the New Zealand Alpine Club.

Captain Kohli led India’s successful expedition to the summit of Mount Everest in 1965.

He is at present based in Sydney as Air India’s manlager for Australia and the •Pacific, and is in New Zealand for two day's to speak at an Alpine Club meeting, and show slides of his team’s expedition to Mount Everest in 1965. Captain Kohli said that the idea of a jet boat expedition up the Ganges River was that of Sir Edmund Hillary. Sir Edmund will lead the expedition, which will begin in September and is expected to take about six weeks. Three Christchurch-built jet boats will be used in the expedition, from the mouth of the Ganges River, in the Bay of Bombay, to its source in the Himalayas. There will be two Christchurch men in the team.

The expedition has been described as a journey from “the ocean to the sky.” “Apart from the physical adventure up the Ganges,! which has been part of India’s history and culture

(for centuries, the trip will :add a tremendous dimension to India’s tourism efforts,” (Captain Kohli said. Stage one of the expedition got under way in Lyttelton yesterday with the loading of the three jet boats aboard the Vishva Vikas.

Sir Edmund plans to spend three weeks negotiating the Ganges and Alakananda rivers from Calcutta to Hardawar, and then another four weeks battling the turbulent mountain streams which lead to the Himalayas. The whole undertaking has the blessing of the Indian government, the Indian Department of Tourism and Air India. It is hoped that expenses will be recovered with the sale of a television documentary of the expedition.

The nucleus of the expedition will be three 16foot Hamilton jet boats which will carry Sir Edmund, the deputy expedition leader (Dr Michael Hill), Mr John Hamilton, the expedition’s engineer and expert driver, Mr Jim Wilson as cultural adviser, Sherpa Mingmontsering and others. The party will be accompanied by a support force of four-wheel-drive vehicles carrying supplies and the camera crew. Two army .trucks, which will form part of the supply column, were loaded in Auckland in the same hold as the jet boats. The jet boats are fibreglass with specially strengthened keels for river

work. They have a range of 150 miles and a total of 3000 gallons of petrol is expected to be consumed.

Sir Edmund estimates the main assault on the Himalyan streams should begin on September 25 and will be concluded on October 22.

Captain Kohli said, “1 am not sure how far we will be able to go with the jet boats because after we reach about 6000 feet above sealevel, we will enter the foothills of the Himalayas and the journey will become dangerous,” he said. “We will go as far as we can with the jet boats and then walk the rest of the way to the source of the river at 13,000 feet.”

He hoped the expedition up the Ganges would soon become a regular feature trip for both Indians and visiting tourists.. He also spoke of the New Zealand team’s recently unsuccessful attempt on Mount Everest. The expedition’s chances of reaching the summit of i Everest without sherpas had! been extremely remote, he said.

However, the team reaching a height of 26,500 ft after! carrying loads and making routes up the steep Lhotse Face was a remarkable effort.” If the team had not been caught by bad weather, it would have reached the last camp and probably reached the sumit, said Captain Kohli.

“I hope that a New Zealand team will return to Mount Everest and attempt to climl it again.” he said.