Indian ship provides sailing training to Qatari officers

“This is a ship for sailing training and we always have about 30 people for training," said commander Rahul Mehta, the captain of the ship."We sailed with six Qatari naval officers from Muscat to Doha. We had a good experience of providing training for them and they got an exposure of what we do in the Indian Navy. It was a very fruitful one and I think they would have learned a lot,” he explained.A group of Qatari naval officers on INS Tarangini

Commander Rahul Mehta and Indian embassy's defence attaché Capt Kapil Koushik onboard the shipTarangini, docked at Doha Port, is on a three-day maiden visit to Qatar and will leave Qatar in the early hours Tuesday. A team of Qatari Naval officers visited the ship Sunday for a familiarisation event at which the defence attaché at Indian embassy, Capt Kapil Koushik was also present. “We have several activity training for both navies which are of bilateral training. Here at the harbour, we have interactions for training with senior officials of Qatar Navy. A team from the ship visited Qatar naval base and another team from Qatar is coming to visit the ship,” explained Capt Koushik.“We are looking to enhance the maritime co-operation between both the countries. Definitely, we will have more opportunities for training. It took six days of training from Muscat to Doha. We showed them how we operate on the sea,” noted Capt Koushik.The official highlighted that the visit is a testimony to the friendly ties between India and Qatar and will further enhance maritime co-operation between the two countries. In the framework of the deep-rooted friendly ties, multi-faceted and growing co-operation between India and Qatar, this is the second time in last three months that an Indian naval ship is visiting Qatar.“The weather has been great and the sea has been calm and we are in good company. This year, we visited more than 16 countries. This is the first visit of the ship to Qatar. This ship is the bedrock of sailing training. It provides the basics of sailing. Most operations of the ship are manual,” continued Capt Mehta. “ There are 206 ropes and everything has to be pulled up during sailing. It has 20 sails. Even to pull a rope, we need four to five people. It inculcates leadership and team spirit. Generally, the training duration for a group is between one and half to six months,” added the captain.The ship has eight officers and 40 sailors and can accommodate and impart sail training to 30 cadets.