Late Vice Admiral
Manohar Awati, a daunting and highly respected Naval Officer ‘par excellence’ with his
imposing moustache and beard and daunting personality cut an imposing figure at
all times, passed away just a month ago at the ripe age of 92.
The Goa Yachting Association
(GYA) had organised a commemorative meeting to celebrate the life of Awati
recently. He was also the founding President of GYA, who formed Association in
1973, at the behest of the then Chief Minister, DayanandBandodkar.
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The meeting was
attended by his son KedarnathAwati from Pune, Members of the Tarini Women’s
Crew, top Naval Officers from Goa, CII officials, members of the Goa Yachting
Association and friends.
In 1973, Bandodkar,
decided that Goa needed to have state level sports Associations in all possible
sports, so that sports could be developed in a proper and organized manner in
the State.
Since
Yachting/sailing was basically an unknown sport amongst the civilians in Goa,
Babodkar contacted Commodore Awati, who back then was the Officer in charge of
Naval command in Goa, and asked him help form the Goa Yachting Association to
promote sailing amongst civilians in Goa.
Commodore Awati
immediately agreed, and called a group of civilians comprising of Cesar
Menezes, Anil Madgavkar, Damodar Bhounsule, Professor Menezes and others, who
were already involved in sailing and water sports, for a meeting to form the
Association.
He informed all the
members present, that this would be purely an Association for promotion of
Yachting amongst the civilians in Goa, and the navy would give all its support
to promote the sport in the State.
Since none of the
Civilians had any experience with running a state Association, they unanimously
elected Commodore Awati to be the President, with all other posts held by civilians.
Commodore Awati
immediately offered all the facilities of the naval sailing club to the
civilians and started a sailing training programme for civilians. Thus the
sport of sailing was born in Goa.
Commodore Awati 6
months later had prospects of a promotion and for that he had to do Sea Duty so
he became Captain of INS Mysore to resolve the mutiny on the vessel. After 2-3
years, he became Rear Admiral.
Admiral Awati was a
man of steely resolve, who refused to bow down to anybody and retired as the Deputy
Chief of the Navy.
Despite his
retirement, Admiral Awati, continued his love for sailing and promoted Ocean
Sailing with a gusto. He got the Navy to start an Ocean sailing programme, and
made them build an Ocean going yacht. His persistence with the Ocean sailing
programme soon bore fruit with Cdr.Donde becoming the first Indian to solo
circumnavigate the world in Yacht “Mhadei’, taking only a few stops along the
way.
Admiral Awati wanted
a solo circumnavigation, without any stops, and this was soon achieved by
Cdr.AbhilashTomy. Admiral Awati was still not satisfied, and soon asked for a
women’s team to take on a circumnavigation. This daunting task was also soon
achieved in 2017 by a team of women naval officers on yacht ‘Tarini’.
