Indian sailor creates history finishing 2nd in global yacht race
text_fields
Les Sables-d’Olonne/France: Creating history, Indian sailor Commander Abhilash Tomy (retd.) finishes second in the Golden Globe Race (GGR), a solo non-stop yacht race around the world, after 236 days in the sea, Asian News International reported.
Tomy finished the race at 1:30 pm (IST) in France’s Les Sables d’Olonne on Saturday. He completes the adventurous feat five years after suffering a severe back injury from a deadly accident while attempting the same.
Retired Naval Commander and a Keralite, Tomy is a recipient of the Tenzing Norgay National Adventure Award. He announced his participation in the Golden Globe Race, a craziest and most dangerous adventure trip, in March 2022.
He tweeted, “I will be taking part in the Golden Globe Race 2022 on the Bayanat. It is a big thing for me, and here is why. On 18 Sep 2018, I was racing in the South Indian Ocean when we were caught in an unusual storm which claimed two of the three boats in its way. Mine was one of them.”
In the deadly accident, he hurt his back. He was stranded in the southern Indian Ocean during GGR 2018.
This edition of the event started on September 4 2022.
The storm, which wrecked his yacht, swept and left him stranded halfway between Australia and South Africa. He was left in the sea for 83 days and was rescued via a complex international effort, and was transferred to an Indian Navy vessel.
Two days after reaching India, he got inserted with titanium roads in his spine, with five vertebrae fused into one. Indian Navy says that he was in communication with Race Control in France.