Which one of the following Indian Naval Ships has recently concluded a 17,000-nm trans-ocean intercontinental voyage?

Correct — D, INSV Tarini. Tarini sailed from Goa on 17 November 2022, crossed to Cape Town, went on to Rio de Janeiro for the Cape to Rio race, and came back the same way, covering close to 17,000 nautical miles in about seven months. The Navy received her at the Indian Naval Watermanship Training Centre at Goa on 23 May 2023. Two officers, Lieutenant Commander Dilna K and Lieutenant Commander Roopa A, were aboard for the whole expedition, some 188 days of sailing, while the rest of the crew changed between the outward and return legs. The purpose was training as much as achievement: the voyage was preparation for a solo circumnavigation, and the two officers went on to sail Tarini around the world in double-handed mode on Navika Sagar Parikrama II, which ended on 29 May 2025 after more than 25,400 nautical miles.

• (a)INS Tarangini — Tarangini is the Navy's square-rigged sail training ship, commissioned in 1997, and she is a much larger vessel with a large trainee complement. She was not the vessel on this Goa to Rio passage.
• (b)INS Mandovi — Mandovi is not a ship at all. It is the naval shore establishment in Goa that houses the watermanship training centre — and, as it happens, the place where Tarini's crew were received at the end of this very voyage.
• (c)INSV Mhadei — Mhadei is Tarini's older sister and the boat on which Indian ocean sailing began: Captain Dilip Donde used her for the first Indian solo circumnavigation in 2009 and 2010. The 2022-23 trans-ocean passage was Tarini's.

The Indian Navy keeps two kinds of sail. Sail training ships such as Tarangini carry many trainees under square rig and are used for seamanship at scale. Sailing vessels such as Mhadei and Tarini are small ocean-going yachts, crewed by a handful of officers, and they exist for long-distance blue-water voyaging. Tarini is a 56-foot sloop built at a Goa shipyard to a Van de Stadt design and commissioned on 18 February 2017. The prefix is worth reading carefully: INS marks a commissioned ship or shore establishment, INSV an Indian Naval Sailing Vessel.

This is a question about reading the option list, not only about remembering a voyage. Two of the four names carry the INSV prefix and two carry INS, and the two sailing vessels are the only plausible candidates for a small-boat ocean passage. Between them, Mhadei is the older boat associated with the solo circumnavigations of the 2009-2013 period, which leaves Tarini for anything recent. The wider programme is worth knowing because it recurs: Navika Sagar Parikrama in 2017-18 took six women officers around the world in 254 days under Lieutenant Commander Vartika Joshi, and the second edition finished in May 2025.

• The voyage covered nearly 17,000 nautical miles from Goa to Cape Town to Rio de Janeiro and back, in about seven months.
• It began on 17 November 2022 and the crew were received at Goa on 23 May 2023.
• Lt Cdr Dilna K and Lt Cdr Roopa A sailed the entire expedition, about 188 days at sea.
• INSV Tarini is a 56-foot sloop commissioned on 18 February 2017; INSV Mhadei is her predecessor.
• Navika Sagar Parikrama II, sailed by the same two officers in double-handed mode, ended on 29 May 2025 after more than 25,400 nautical miles.

• Reading INS Mandovi as a ship; it is a shore establishment, and shore establishments are commissioned like ships in the Indian Navy.
• Attaching a recent voyage to Mhadei out of habit — she belongs to the earlier circumnavigations.
• Confusing a sail training ship, which carries many trainees, with a sailing vessel crewed by a handful of officers.

Asked as a name-to-event match, with the plausibility of each option resting on whether the candidate can tell a yacht from a training ship from a shore establishment.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The first Indian to complete a solo circumnavigation of the globe under sail, in 2009-10, did so aboard

  • (a)INSV Tarini
  • (b)INSV Mhadei
  • (c)INS Tarangini
  • (d)INS Sudarshini

  Answer(b) INSV Mhadei — Captain Dilip Donde sailed her on that voyage, and she later served as the template for the design of Tarini.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Navika Sagar Parikrama, completed in 2018, is best described as

  • (a)a naval exercise with friendly navies in the Indian Ocean
  • (b)a circumnavigation of the globe by an all-woman crew of Indian naval officers
  • (c)a coastal security drill along the western seaboard
  • (d)a hydrographic survey of the Andaman Sea

  Answer(b) a circumnavigation of the globe by an all-woman crew of Indian naval officers — six officers aboard INSV Tarini, 254 days at sea.