New Delhi: As INSV Kaundinya is set to embark on its maiden voyage on December 29, the sailing vessel represents the legacy of stitched shipbuilding and India’s timeless maritime connection with the Indian Ocean world.
Sharing the details ahead of its voyage in a post on X, the official handle for INSV Kaundiya said, “Charting history across the seas. INSV Kaundinya retraces ancient Indian transoceanic trade routes, sailing from India to Muscat, Oman–showcasing the legacy of stitched shipbuilding and India’s timeless maritime connect with the Indian Ocean world.”
The Indian Navy’s pioneering stitched sailing vessel (INSV) Kaundinya is set to embark on her maiden voyage on December 29, the Ministry of Defence said in an official statement.
As per the Ministry, INSV Kaundinya revives India’s ancient shipbuilding and seafaring traditions and will undertake her maiden overseas voyage on 29 December 2025. The vessel will be flagged off from Porbandar, Gujarat, for Muscat, Oman, symbolically retracing the historic maritime routes that connected India with the wider Indian Ocean world for millennia.
The statement said that, inspired by depictions of ancient Indian ships and constructed entirely using traditional stitched-plank techniques, INSV Kaundinya represents a rare convergence of history, craftsmanship and modern naval expertise. Unlike contemporary vessels, her wooden planks are stitched together using coconut coir rope and sealed with natural resins, reflecting a shipbuilding tradition once prevalent along India’s coasts and across the Indian Ocean. This technology enabled Indian mariners to undertake long-distance voyages to West Asia, Africa and Southeast Asia long before the advent of modern navigation and metallurgy.
The project was undertaken through a tripartite MoU between the Ministry of Culture, the Indian Navy and M/s Hodi Innovations as part of India’s efforts to rediscover and revive indigenous knowledge systems. Built by traditional artisans under the guidance of master shipwright Babu Sankaran and supported by extensive research, design and testing by the Indian Navy and academic institutions, the vessel is fully seaworthy and capable of oceanic navigation.
Named after the legendary mariner Kaundinya, who is believed to have sailed from India to Southeast Asia in ancient times, the ship embodies India’s historic role as a maritime nation.
INSV Kaundinya will undertake her maiden overseas voyage on December 29, 2025. The vessel will be flagged off from Porbandar, Gujarat, for Muscat, Oman, symbolically retracing the historic maritime routes that connected India to the wider Indian Ocean world for millennia.
Sanjeev Sanyal, historian and member to the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM), in an interview with ANI, said, “Beyond the technical experiment, the project carries a broader historical objective. Indian history has often been portrayed as passive, overlooking centuries of maritime activity, trade, and exploration. Indians were not sitting around waiting for conquerors to give them civilisation. We had adventurers, mercenaries, traders, and sailors. Long before the Phoenicians, Indians were sailing across the Indian Ocean,” he added.
As the vessel sets sail towards Oman, it carries with it not only a crew and canvas sails but also a renewed effort to reclaim a forgotten chapter of India’s oceanic past, he added.
The Ministry of Defence noted in a prior statement that INSV Kaundinya is a stitched sail ship, based on a 5th-century CE ship depicted in the paintings of Ajanta Caves. Over several months, the team painstakingly stitched wooden planks on the ship’s hull using coir rope, coconut fibre and natural resin. The ship was launched in February 2025 at Goa.
The Indian Navy played a central role in the project, overseeing the design, technical validation, and construction process. With no surviving blueprints of such vessels, the design had to be inferred from iconographic sources. The Navy collaborated with the shipbuilder to recreate the hull form and traditional rigging and ensured that the design was validated through hydrodynamic model testing at the Department of Ocean Engineering, IIT Madras, and internal technical assessment.
The statement highlighted how the newly inducted vessel incorporates several culturally significant features. Her sails display motifs of the Gandabherunda and the Sun, her bow bears a sculpted Simha Yali, and a symbolic Harappan-style stone anchor adorns her deck, each element evoking the rich maritime traditions of ancient India. Named after Kaundinya, the legendary Indian mariner who sailed across the Indian Ocean to Southeast Asia, the ship serves as a tangible symbol of India’s long-standing traditions of maritime exploration, trade, and cultural exchange.
(With inputs from ANI)
