INSV Kaundinya Revives Ancient Indian Maritime Heritage with Stitched-Sail Voyage

Speaking at the programme organised at the Indian Embassy in Oman to celebrate the successful voyage of INSV Kaundinya on Thursday, Sanyal said the project aimed to reconstruct an ocean-going ship using the "ancient Indian stitching" technique, inspired by a 5th-century depiction from the Ajanta Caves.

"The aim of the project was to reconstruct an ocean-going ship using the ancient Indian stitching technique and to revive cultural memories of ancient Indian maritime heritage," he said.

Explaining the design journey, Sanyal said, "The first thing we did was draw a line drawing of what the Ajanta painting looked like. Then see if we could correlate it with whatever serving-board building traditions existed. We also looked into Omani reconstruction. There was an Omani reconstruction called the Jewel of Muscat about 15 years ago."

"We also looked at that, and we got very helpful input from Captain Saleh, who had saved it. The project's conceptualisation took place in 2021-22," he said, adding that he met naval architect Commander Hemant "by chance," who has since been a part of the crew. Sanyal noted that it was through Commander Hemant's help that they got the line drawing made.

"We removed the three-mast model to a two-mast one because that would be much more practical. And we arrived at what would be a reasonable set of dimensions for the ship. The length is 21 meters, the breadth 6.5 meters, the depth 3.3 meters, approximately 50 tons, and a crew of about 18. This is all the detailing we started in 2022," Sanyal said.

Earlier on Wednesday, Sanyal shared his experience of the ship's 18-day voyage from Porbandar in Gujarat to Muscat, describing it as challenging yet memorable. "We had some gorgeous sunrises and moonrises, but we also had rain and storms. Indian Navy crew is amazing," Sanyal said, adding that the journey represented a five-year-long dream. He credited Prime Minister Narendra Modi for encouraging the initiative and noted that the Indian Navy supervised construction and crewed the voyage.

The ship departed from Gujarat's Porbandar on December 29, 2025. The voyage was undertaken by a crew comprising four officers and 13 naval sailors, with the expedition skippered by Commander Vikas Sheoran and Commander Y Hemant Kumar serving as the Officer-in-Charge. Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council member Sanjeev Sanyal, who was part of the crew, shared daily updates about the ship on social media.

- ANI