Captain William Bligh of The HMS Bounty (Anthony Hopkins) was relieved of Command by mutineers (led by Mel Gibson) and cast away in the middle of the sea in a boat along with a few loyal sailors. The Captain thereafter, displayed tremendous leadership qualities, excellent knowledge of seamanship and dogged perseverance against all odds, to get his entire bedraggled crew to safety after traversing 3000 nautical miles in the boat. The Indian Navy, perhaps inspired by the movie, has chosen this very methodology to inculcate leadership qualities in its trainees. Periodically therefore, it puts a few of them in a small boat in the middle of the sea and hope like hell that they find their way into harbour. This exercise is imaginatively called ‘Catspaw’.
It so happened that we were on the way from Mumbai to Kochi on our training ship when the Captain decided that Cadet Rakesh Dahiya (and another six unfortunate souls) were due (despite they all being happy with their character) for some character building. So, we were bundled onto a boat and set adrift at about 0400 hrs, thankfully not 3000, but 15 nautical miles or so (about 27 km) from Kochi. We were expected to find our way to Kochi, like Bligh, using the stars, the sun, a magnetic compass; but mostly I suspect, luck. We were also expected to reach Kochi well in time for lunch.
Gung ho teens that we all were, we thought (erroneously) that the entire exercise could not be so difficult; we would just follow the ship. But it is surprising how quicky a ship displacing a couple of thousand tonnes and more, can vanish out of sight and about 20 minutes later, we found ourselves bobbing all alone in the darkness.
The Captain of the ship had thoughtfully equipped us with ‘sails’ and so we rigged them up as best as we could. However just as one can take a horse to the water, but not make it drink, so is the case with boats. You can rig them up, but they mule (or is it horse?) headedly refuse to cooperate with your intentions, if there is no breeze. And on that fateful morning there was not even a whiff. So we kept bobbing at one spot, with the highly desired forward movement being nil. On the other hand, our strenuous efforts at sail rigging had left us famished and we decided that we might as well nourish our souls with the rations provided. This was accomplished in quick time and by 0600 hrs we had finished everything, including water. Insofar as movement towards Kochi was concerned however, our boat was like that horse.
But then, when the ‘going gets tough, the tough get going’ being our ‘Blighly’ motto, we decided to start rowing homewards. Now don’t be fooled by those romantic setting in movies where a couple row contentedly in a lake amongst swans and a setting sun; with frequent amorous looks. We were firstly at sea. Secondly, the oars given to us weighed about (with a slight exaggeration) 50 kgs each. Just picking one up and fixing it onto the crutches in the wobbly boat was enough to help us digest the breakfast in no time. Thirdly, we had no clue where we were. Fourthly, by 0800 hrs, the sun had reached well above the horizon had started blazing down on us mercilessly. It would not need a great deal of imagination therefore for you to gauge that amorous looks were conspicuous only by their absence.
Be that as it may, we started rowing. One of the guys who thought he understood the compass and its mysterious workings (but more to avoid rowing is my calculated guess) picked it up and appointed himself ‘navigator’. He pointed in a general direction and off we went; at a blistering speed of 2 kmph. In an hour or so, what with the muscles of our arms, shoulders and back aching like the dickens, this had dropped to 1 kmph. More pertinently, the thing with rowing is that every ‘pull’ of the row makes one slide forward on the wooden strakes that we were sitting on, by a few inches. Before the next ‘pull’ therefore, one needs to slide back in preparation for the next ‘pull’. So it was pull, slide forward, shift back, pull and repeat. So far so good. This ‘toing and froing’ is manageable for maybe a few minutes. But soon thereafter, this darned thing called friction comes into play; friction between the hard unyielding wooden strakes and the soft easily bruised bottoms. Resultantly, by 1100 hrs our bums were as sore as if they had been sandpapered, by a particularly vicious hand.
It was soon approaching 1200 hrs; the time we were expected back on the ship at Kochi. The ship had therefore not bothered with catering for our lunch on the boat. The strenuous rowing on the other hand, had by now accentuated our hunger and the lack of drinking water made us resemble Captain Bligh and his crew – ragged, sun burnt, limp and bedraggled.
Notwithstanding, calling on all our reserves of mental strength we continued rowing when fortune intervened at about 1500 hrs. Just as we sighted one of the buoys that marked Kochi harbour and our spirits rose skywards, we were rewarded by the squawk of our walkie talkie – “Baby, Baby, this is Mother”. Hallelujah!!! The civilians amongst my readers would have been stumped by these somewhat endearing terms in a naval setting, but it would suffice to say that those were the chosen callsigns. It could be ascertained clearly from the tone of the call that ‘mother’ as mothers are wont to be, was worried. Well, the babies were worried too and one of us jumped to the walkie talkie and responded – “Mother, this is Baby”. Silence. Then again, “Baby, baby, this is Mother, do you read me”, followed by “Mother this is Baby, do YOU read me”. And this comic scene (comic only in hindsight) continued for the next many hours. For some reason, while the plaintive ‘baby’ could hear the doting ‘mother’ clearly, the doting ‘mother’ couldn’t hear the plaintive ‘baby’ at all.
However, with Kochi visible, we were ‘buoyed’ enough to ignore the sandpapered bums and recommence rowing with renewed vigour, maybe even at 3 kmph. An hour later, we expected the Kochi skyline to get clearer. Strangely it seemed hazier and more distant. The thing you see is that the Kochi harbour has an infernally strong tidal stream and while we in our zeal were rowing at 3 kmph, the tidal stream was pushing us away from Kochi at 3.2 kmph! Essentially, we were being rewarded for overcoming the soreness of our bums with virtually zero forward movement. Meanwhile, ‘mother’s’ voice was getting more strident.
Fortunately, God in his infinite wisdom has created the moon, rotation, gravitational pulls, etc. The combined effect of God’s efforts is that the tide turns every six hours and by the 70th unanswered ‘Baby, Baby, this is Mother’, call, the tide had started pushing us TOWARDS home.
To cut a long story short, the tide carried us towards Kochi and we reached ‘Mother’ by about 1900 hrs – quite unlike James Bond’s martini, shaken, as well as, stirred. We trooped up the ship’s ladder, in a not so dignified ‘vishram’ position (courtesy the aforementioned friction). It took us about a week before we could sit with some comfort on our bums. Blast the sights and smells of the sea. Damn the cat and damn her paws!
Wonderfully elucidated I still remember beas boys that we were also asked to look out for you all.
Thank you Pravesh
Very well narrated Rakesh. Your articles are interesting..
Thank you Sir
Fabulous RKD. Guess many of us had similar experiences. Catspaw on those whalers was quite something
Oh yes, all of us have similar experiences. The Navy doesn’t discriminate!
Vert well written Rakesh, very nostalgic indeed. And a cats paw can indeed turn into a dog’s life for the duration!
Haha. Yes it does. Cats/dogs, all the sane
Brilliant elucidation of the perils of a cadet. My experience was similar but met with rolling on reaching ‘mother’. She was not merciful towards her deeply sunburnt, sweaty, hungry and patched babies.
Rolling is often an unfortunate side effect. Sometimes deserved. Sometimes Just Like That. Good days those
Those were some great memories Dahiya. Thanks for taking us back in time faithfully. All of sudden Sun and Sea is not a beckoning sign but a trigger for a rather trying passage to becoming a naval officer.
Oh yes, so many trying times! But I guess we all turned out just fine
Dear Cmde,
Enjoyed reading the article. Very well written. Thankyou
Thank you Sir
BZ! Rakesh.
In our case, way back in 1974, the sea wasn’t kind and we were seasick from the word go!
Only consolation was the Cape Ramus ( Karwar) was visible through out the ordeal!
Thank you Sir. Oh yes seasickness!. I have a blog coming up on that. Will post some day.
Your Brilliant writing make it really interesting. Kudos on the way you narrate
Thank you Sir
Great to read up about your adventure. Well written. You could add a sample picture of the type of boat. Would help to understand the situation better.
All in all a fabulous write-up!
Thanx Riyaz. Yes others have also told me to add a few photos to improve the posts. Will keep that in mind for the future.
Enjoyed reading your not at all enjoyable experience. But all’s well that ends well.
Yup, all’s well that ends well just about summarises it well. Thanx Aries
Nice one sir. In a lighter vein sometimes the local fishing boat comes in handy. 😀
That was nicely described sir. In a lighter vein sometimes a local fishing boat comes in handy. 😀
Oh yes, fishing boats have come to the rescue many a times for many a ‘catspawers’. Thanx Puruvir
Maybe a Catspaw learning, I resisted the intense temptation to read the article in the morning and postponed the activity to be done in the evening with commencement of the elbow bending event; and have been richly rewarded sir.
The opening lines are too too good 😊
Thanks so much for sharing…
Thank you very much Ayyar
Nicely put togather. Took us back by 36 years. Seems like yesterday. Great narration.
Thank you Dinesh. We’ve all been through it, isn’t it!
Hi RKD,
Initially, it was considerably painstaking to understand the adventures and excitement of a young naval cadet to an aviator from a landlocked country. I gathered whatever information I had from, ‘The Bounty’, ‘Cast Away’, ‘Pirates of the Sea’ with magnificent casts of Anthony Hopkins, Mel Gibson, Tom Hanks and Jhonny Dep. Thanks to our great institution NDA that gave me an opportunity to feel the oars during the rowing competition in khadakwasla lake. After all, I could understand your gripping adventure. You have put in so beautifully in words, thank you for sharing this article full of excitement.
Thank you Sudheer. But that was a little bit of toooo much of excitement!
Super writing, RKD. Felt as one of the crew throughout.
Thank you Sandeep. Good thing you weren’t though. I still put on my trousers a bit gingerly!
I was a Naval NCC Cadet in school in Bengaluru. We used to be taken for ‘boat pulling’ in Ulsoor lake. Later, after becoming a Flier in the IAF, I tried it in once for about 20 minutes. My arms were sore for many days.
So, I can understand your trauma from 0400 to 1900 hrs- 15 hrs of rowing. Made you tough & your Captain would have been relieved on seeing you.
Enjoyed reading. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you Sir! Yup the Captain was in the midst of launching a search party and a helicopter when we reached. We were of course ‘rewarded’ for our tardiness in traditional fauji style, which only accentuated the sand paper effect on our butts.
Very nicely narrated 😂 which year and month was this ?
Oh that was a long time ago! Sometime second half of 1986. Thank you
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Vivid description! Loved reading it.
Thank you very much Gp Capt!
God, I haven’t laughed so hard for a very long time.
Thanks for this Dost.
Thank you! Please have a look at the other posts too.
Enjoyed reading your well written article Rakesh. We, too, had our ‘Catspaw’ experience as cadets. In October 1971, eell before dawn, we were dropped in 2 whalers about 30 nautical miles West of Bombay by ‘mothership’, INS Krishna. With unfavourable winds and currents, we got badly delayed. Well after sunset, when we reached the entrance of Bombay Harbour. a speedboat of Customs Dept. intercepted us! We had to convince them that we were neither Dawood Irahim’s goons nor Pak Navy Divers in disguise. 🥸 For it was a couple of months before the 1971 war, and the security was tight.
Ah, those were the days! 😊
Mohan Kuruvilla
40th NDA
Thank you very much Sir. Marvellous anecdote. Quite a lot of us, from your times and mine seem to have had similar catspaw experiences!! Please read my other posts on servedfunnysideup.com and please feel free to share amongst your coursemates and family/friends too. Warm regards
Loved your article
Thank you Sir. Please check out my blog for some more posts dedicated purely to humour
servedfunnysideup.com
One of the blessed by “ luck” when the whaler drifted so far away that the visible Kochi skyline vanished by noon due to strong tidal current . A fishing boat returning answered to our frantic waving, were towed upto harbour mouth in exchange for the bread we were issued and rowed back to ship safely thereafter.
We also had to hitch hike back to Kochi after being dropped on the beach of Cannanore with no money or identity card . Remember a family entertaining us with lunch believing our story .
Happy memories of cadethood’.
Haha. I can see that whalers can be depended upon to provide some adventure always. Yes, great memories of ‘cadethood ’!!!
Warm regards Sir. Cheers!!
Sir, Great narration of a treacherous exercise . Reminds me of similar experience onboard Tir. I am yet to hear any cadet claim that the winds and tide were in their favour. The humour in your testimony indeed got me ROFL 😝
Thanx Deswal. If you read the other comments we all have had similar experiences. And they seem hilarious only in hindsight! But Shared experiences also build camaraderie. Cheers to that!
My funny bone was the oar vaulting around reading this piece. Nicely elucidated.
Thank you very much. By god those oars were heavy
Ah…. those catspaw! Wonderful sir. Regards.
Thanx Shirish. Wonderful yes. Those were the days!
Great narrative sir, and it brings back memories of similar “adventures” (for the uninitiated) . On one occasion, a couple of boats were sailed out from Kochi to one of the L&M islands during our Subs Courses, manned by officers from the junior batch. One reached and the other was not traceable for a couple of days despite Air Searches . The New Years eve function in the club was almost canceled in “anticipated mourning”.
Great reading sir, keep them coming.
Thanx Vatsayan. Yes, if one reads the other comments too one can see that most of us have had similar experiences. Builds character and resilience, what! Cheers
Rakeshdahiya4,
Thank you for a very funny write up and written on a subject close to our hearts. The added humour was refreshing specially in today’s ‘very serious Navy’
I would love to read more of what you write!!
SN Singh 38th Course.
Rakeshdahiya4,
Thank you for a very funny write up and written on a subject close to our hearts. The added humour was refreshing specially in today’s ‘very serious Navy’
I would love to read more of what you write!!
SN Singh 38th Course.
Thank you very much Sir. You can check out my other posts on servedfunnysideup.com. You may find some of them interesting. Only humour – nothing serious
Superb !!!
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Hi Rakesh. Was your father also in the IN ?
Yes Sir! Dharam Jit
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