No passage to India

Press, 7 July 1977, Page 8

No passage to India

| NZPA-Reuter London A Royal Navy helicopter has rescued a 26-year-old Indian who had set out in a ramshackle sloop to sail from Britain to India. Mr Prasanta Mukherjee was found 56km south-east of the Isle of Wight by an Argentinian warship.

He was lifted off his seven-metre sloop Chinta by a helicopter from the cruiser H.M.S Blake.

English coastguards told NZPA-Reuter that he had been flown to Portsmouth Naval Hospital and that his condition was “not too bad.”

Mr Mukherjee set sail for home on Monday from the southern English port of Southampton. But, just as she was leaving her moorings on the River Hamble, the Chinta ran aground. Soon after, he hailed a police launch to ask the way to Calcutta.

Mr Mukherjee ignored official warnings that his

rust-streaked craft was unseaworthy, and he was described by a radio station on the Isle of Wight, as being in a “bit of a flap” as he headed for the French coast. English coastguards said that early yesterday the Chinta was in difficulties, and one of them said, “the boat was in terrible shape.” British and French naval and coastguard craft began their hunt for Mr Mukherjee and his ship after hearing his distress call.

Mrs Mukti Benerjee, sister to the Indian adventurer, told NZPA-Reuter in London that she had been “very fearful,” although she thought her brother was a good sailor. Mr Mukherjee, from Osterley, Middlesex, had been determined to become the first Indian single-handed sailor in the tradition of Chichester, Blyth, and Rose. He had set off confidently, after making a careful note on his chart to turn right at the Isle of Wight into the English Channel.

Chinta was loaded with curry to sustain the Indian during his estimated 82 days at sea. Before sailing from the Hamble he had also been given flasks of tea and packets of sandwiches by admiring fellow Indians.

The leaky old yacht, which had a little outboard motor clamped on two planks in the stern, was also loaded with dozens of packets of Quaker Oats porridge flakes. Mr Mukherjee worked for the Quaker Oats firm in Middlesex, and he was presented with a free supply when he resigned to sail back home . . .

“There is absolutely nothing wrong with this boat. It has cost me $l7OO and I have been working on it for three years,” he said before his departure. “I have studied navigation and will certainly be reaching Calcutta, and if the boat is still in satisfactory condition when I arrive there, why, goodness me, I shall carry’ on right round the world.”