Parrikar to lay keel for women sailing team's boat

New Delhi: Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar will on Sunday lay the keel for the sailing boat which India's first all-women crew will use to sail across the seas.

The boat will be built in Goa.

The team, led by Lt. Commander Vartika Joshi, was so far being trained on INSC Mhadei by Commander Dilip Donde, India's first sailor to complete solo circumnavigation across the globe on INSV Mhadei.

"The sailor must know every nail on the boat, because in the open sea, it's just the sailor and the boat... So the team has to be involved in construction of the boat," a Navy official said.

Apart from Joshi, the all-women team includes Lt. Pratibha Jamwal and Lt. P Swathi in the core group, besides Lt Vijaya Devi and Sub Lt Payal Gupta.