Sailing at the Highest Altitude - Gautama Dutta

Select Language Chinese Arabic French German Italian Japanese Korean Portuguese Russian Spanish English

Very few Indians have been able to make a mark in the World of Sports and the famous Guinness World Records.

But thanks to the superior quality of sailors in the country, there have been a lot of yachtsmen who have made their marks and have participated and won at the Olympics, Asian Games and have been conferred the title of Arjuna Awardee (the highest title in terms of Sports in India).


Gautama Dutta, the man behind the success of Ferrettis and Pershings in India - was born with a sail. Serving the Indian Army for years, his lifestyle and hobbies are typically soldier-like till this date, and has helped Marine Solutions in a big way to be the company that it is today.

Below, he shares a part of his personal history, that not only makes him a proud man, but also India a proud motherland of quality sailors.

SAILING AT THE HIGHEST ALTITUDE

"Sailing is a sport I have passionately pursued since I was a child. In the year 1988 while going through the Guinness Book of World Records I came across an entry for sailing at the highest altitude in the sports section of the book. The record stood in the name of three persons from UK who sailed a Mirror class dinghy on a lake in the Andes at an altitude of 4910 m. I made up my mind to better this record and with this end in mind I first set out to locate lakes in India which would be higher than the existing record and yet be accessible. It took me three years to carefully research the various high altitude lakes in the Indian Himalayas and Karakorum Range before I finally set my sights on lake Deo-Tal. This lake located in the Upper Himalayas at an altitude of 5240 m lay along an ancient trail connecting India with Tibet over the Mana Pass, making it fairly accessible from the nearest road head of the temple town of Badrinath. Further investigation with mountaineers and army personnel posted in that sector had revealed that this lake remained frozen the year around save the month of September. Having gained this information, I wrote to the Guinness Book of World Records in 1991 to confirm the status of the existing record and to learn about the guidelines for attempting the record. On receiving confirmation and the go ahead from the Guinness Book of World Records, I set about planning my attempt. The first task at hand was to raise money to import a Laser class sailing dinghy from Japan which I was able to do by the following year. Thereafter I worked towards organising my finances and planning an expedition to Lake Deo-Tal. R. Z. Rana of Baroda, a mountaineer friend of mine, helped me with necessary Govt. of India permissions and the arrangements with the local guides and porters of Badrinath. We finally decided to attempt the expedition to Lake Deo-Tal the following year in the months of August-September during the peak of the melting season.


On 30th August 1993 I set off by road from Baroda for Badrinath along with Rana and a few others. We travelled in a van with my boat, ‘Hotspur’, lashed on top of the roof. Everything was a tight fit with the eight of us including the driver squeezing in with a pile of provisions and climbing equipment. We drove through the Rajasthan desert making a few stops at historical spots before we arrived in Delhi in the middle of the night on 31st August. There were a few formalities that needed to be cleared with the Indian Mountaineering Federation (IMF) the next day after which we set off for Joshimath in the Garhwal Himalayas. We arrived at Joshimath on the evening of 02 September and spent the next day stocking up on provisions and obtaining the final go ahead from the District Magistrate. On 04 September the expedition established the first camp at Mana village near Badrinath town.

The move towards Mana Pass was thereafter delayed by reports of unexpected bad weather in the upper reaches. After fours of waiting, five members of the trekking team from Baroda, Hira Singh the local guide from Mana, ten porters carrying the boat and provisions, one Border Police guide and I set off from Mana leaving behind our van and its driver along with one member of the trekking team who was down with mountain sickness. On 09 September we established camp 15 kms from Mana along the course of the River Saraswati which we were to follow till the pass. En route we crossed the famous Bhimpul bridge which is a strangely wedged rock left hanging by nature over a bottomless raging gorge. Our move the next day was delayed by the sudden disappearance of one of our ponies who decided to return to Mana village in the night. However by night fall we were able to make our next destination - the grassy little valley of Ghastoli.

From Ghastoli when we moved on climbing beyond 14000 ft. the landscape turned bleak and arid, rocky bare hill sides fraught with landslides and glittering white peaks in the distance. On the morning of 12th September we had to negotiate the dangerous torrent Bulbula Dhar. We waded through at the early hours as the torrent increased with day becoming warmer. The same evening everyone had checked in at the Border Police outpost of Rattakona when all of a sudden the weather turned nasty. After three days of incessant snowfall, Rana and I decided to reconnoitre the area ahead to our next halt at Jagrao and examine the feasibility of carrying on with our attempt. There were serious thoughts of abandoning the attempt as two of the porters were down with mountain sickness and some others had varying degrees of mild frost bite. After long deliberations we decided to wait one more day and as if to reward our patience the next day the weather cleared. On 16th September 1994 in brilliant sunshine and five feet of fresh snow the team moved on to Jagrao where a few shelters built by the Border Police existed. We left behind the two sick porters and some of our provisions for our return journey. When we moved the next morning from the Jagrao huts to the deserted Old Jagrao camp the numbers were down to bare minimum as we had to leave behind three more porters along with two members of the trekking team suffering from frost bite and snow blindness. We established camp at Old Jagrao with bare essentials on the evening of 17th September 1994 and prayed the weather gods would be kind the next day.

The 18th dawned a sparkling clear and windy day. This was the day when we were to make our final push towards Mana Pass and Deo-Tal. Early in the morning I set off along with a couple of porters carrying the boat and some emergency rations. The trekking team decided to move to the Mana Pass with the local guide while I was to stop short and turn off towards the lake and sail my boat there. We planned to return to our camp at Old Jagrao by dusk. The climb towards the pass was extremely difficult because of the thick snow and glaciated stretches in between. At places the boat had to be belayed by ropes and pulled up vertically 50 feet and more. After five hours of toil we finally reached the sparkling blue waters of Lake Deo-Tal. The intense rugged beauty of the place was overpowering. The icy peaks surrounding the freezing blue waters gave the whole vista a surreal feel and somehow I couldn’t help dwelling on the name of the lake which in Sanskrit means ‘Lake of The Gods’. After an hour of tramping along the frozen shores of the lake we finally found a small sun warmed gravel patch which afforded access to the turquoise blue waters. Here we set the boat down and unpacked her. The porters offered a short prayer to the holy waters of Deo-Tal as I launched Hotspur and steered away to the distant shore. The bright sunshine and my wetsuit did not suffice to keep the frozen chill out and I soon had to head back for shore, cutting short the most exhilarating sail of my life. After briefly thawing out my frozen limbs I quickly packed up my boat began the back breaking trek back to camp.

We returned to Mana Village on the morning of 21st September after having picked up all those we left behind at various camps on our way up. I felt compelled to pay a visit to the local deity at Badrinath and asked his forgiveness for having sailed in such holy waters. This seemed to satisfy the locals who had great misgivings over the entire venture and then in the evening over a campfire with a freshly roasted goat and a barrel of the locally brewed spirits all the anxiety and toil was forgotten."

We wish you All the Best for your future endeavours...