While a deadly storm off the coast of Oman claimed the lives of 20 fishermen in 1986, it couldn't capsize the dream shared by six Bombay sailors. Sohini Das Gupta retraces the adventure
The year was 1985 and Friday night was looking good in a bar at Colaba's Royal Bombay Yacht Club. It was over repeats of rum pani and a passion for sailing that three friends hatched a crazy plan to sail from Bombay to Muscat on a cabinless, roofless sailboat identified as the Seabird. There must have been enough crazies going around in the club that night, because in a matter of hours, they had three others on board.
"My friend J Jehangir and I had just won a national sailing championship. We had a boat—JJ's small but sturdy Seabird called Jaeger—and this itch to attempt an open passage all the way to Muscat," recalls seaman Sheri Bamboat. One could argue that the proprietor of boat manufacturing company XS Marines had to realise the prophetic second half of his surname, sooner or later. But back in the day, Bamboat was fresh out of college, perfecting the art of sailing with the help of neighbour Cyrus Heerjee, overlooking a lifetime of sailing, repairing and upgrading Seabirds. Heerjee, as it happened, was the sole navigator for Mission Muscat.
Jaegar and sandpiper set out for Muscat ,February 1986
After six months of planning, prepping and failing to convince three city clubs to spare them a second boat, Team-M found Jaeger its match in Sandpiper, a private boat lent for the purpose "by a generous, trusting sailor called Kishore Mariwala". Armed with such gestures, a shoe-string budget of Rs 15-20,000 per head and sheer spirit, they set off from Gateway of India amidst much apprehensions and fanfare on February 7, 1986.
It only hit us next morning at dawn, when the first light broke, and we put our heads out of the sleeping bags and we could see nothing except the lonely looking sea and sky all around, not even a bird or a ship on the horizon to wave out to, that we were finally on our way to Muscat or bust! wrote Heerjee in a journal entry dated April 30, 1986. "We all had our roles. Mine was to use a sextant we'd got from Hong Kong to determine our course and position," he explains. He mentions how Bamboat, along with another teammate, "took the first watch after sunset" and soon established his role as the "chief cook" on Sand Piper. Bamboat too, has no trouble recalling the mounds of tomatoes he'd diced under a soaking deck, splashes of the sea flavouring their soup, or the sabzi-daal-chawal cooked on kerosene stoves, made agreeable by a rotation of masalas. There was also a steady supply of maggi, tea-coffee, biscuits, banana chips and nuts, tinned tuna, "egg powder that was yuck" and "tiny sips of good ol' rum". Surrounded by rationed food the Arabian sea, the six soon learned the value of fresh water.
Another thing that the team learnt, after a smooth nine days—marked by two birthdays and a brief halt at port Diu (to rerig the boats)—was the unpredictability of nature. Out of nowhere, Jaegar and Sandpiper were hit by bad weather. "The sea was choppy, the clouds long-black and ice-cold Shamal winds blew over us for hours at an end, sometimes at a speed of 30 knots," says Bamboat, who never learnt to swim. In the middle of this chaos, the two boats lost sight of each other, but thankfully reunited, only to seek shelter at a village 60 miles south of Muscat till the Shamal blew over. "When we finally reached, the customs officials informed us that we'd just survived a storm that had killed 20 fisher-folk. They thought we were mad—mad to sail on small boats from Bombay to Muscat!" Heerjee recounts, nostalgia lapping at his voice.
The sailors strike a pose
But Bombay to Muscat it was, in 15 days, for the sail-happy six. Muscat to Bombay too, after a 14 day breather at the port town where they stocked up on chocolates and good luck. "The ride back home was a picnic, completed in half the time. A deep satisfaction swept over us as the tall buildings of Cuffe Parade became visible in the final stretch," Heerjee winds up. The men had managed to cover 850 M-and hit the exact entrance of the Bombay harbour.
The Seabirds lost sight of each other before being reunited
Thirty-one years since the magical voyage to Muscat, Heerjee and Bamboat remain friends and sailing mates.
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