Meet this 15-year-old Mumbai sailor who is making India proud around the world

When Mumbai sailor Anandi Chandavarkar started sailing for fun in 2019, the 15-year-old had no idea that she would be sailing professionally, competing internationally and winning medals in the next five years. "I first started sailing in 2019 because of my dad who took me to the sailing club in Mumbai. It was a really good experience. I did not think I would be competing internationally. I was just having fun with some of my friends who were also sailing with me. I sailed one regatta, and I didn't even know what I was doing," shares the teenage sailor from Bandra, in an interview at the mid-day office.

Almost five years and two Phuket King's Cup wins later, she is juggling between Mumbai and countries around the world. We meet the young Mumbaikar after she had just returned from New Zealand where she participated in the Open Skiff Nationals in Auckland. Before that, she was at the OpenSkiff Eurochallenge on Garda Trentino 2024 in Circolo Vela Arco in Italy. While she won a bronze in Italy, she bettered it and won silver in New Zealand in the Under-17 and Girls category.

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Exploring the world stage
Currently, she is preparing to compete in Hungary later this month. Ask her how she feels about her progress, and she retains her child-like enthusiasm. She expresses, "I am still having fun with sailing and competing around the world. I competed at my first World Championship in 2022 and didn't know what I was doing there and finished in the 140s. From there, I decided that I can get better and doing events and improving."

Chandavarkar's recent trip to New Zealand proved to be fruitful in more than one way because she was not only able to participate in the competition but also the attend a coaching clinic before that. She shares, "We were in Auckland, which is called the ‘City of Sails'. So, it has a pretty big sailing culture and we got to meet Olympians, Olympic medallists and they were talking to the kids, so that was great for me."

The Mumbaikar has come a long way from when she first started out five years. Less than a year after she started her sailing journey, the Covid-19 pandemic hit the world, and everything came to a standstill. However, it was only the start because with Mumbai's wind and surrounding waters setting sail to her dreams of exploring the seas, she decided to continue from 2022 and hasn't looked back since then. After trying her hand at a variety of boats, she happens to be the first one sailing in the Open Skiff internationally. While that may seem unique, it presents its own sets of challenges. However, the fleet is slowly growing in the country and for the better.

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Juggling education and city infrastructure for sailing

As she juggles her sailing competitions, she also has an eye on her education, which she does not miss. While it is tiring because of her schedule, Chandavarkar says she has achieved the fine balance between her studies and love for sailing and competing at the international level. "After you get used to the time-difference, it gets better and becomes normal. If I have my classes, I have to schedule it with my time difference but that's how I am able to do it online."

It gets better because her school Ecole Mondiale World School has been encouraging and lets her take some days off. "They have been very flexible because of which I don't have to do certain subjects. So, that let's me take some days off school and go sailing in Gateway of India. I sail on the weekends and then maybe one or two days in the week," she adds. It may seem like the teen is only sailing but she does find time to spend with her friends and even have other hobbies, some of which include playing football, windsurfing, adds her mother, as she also intends to try her hand out at other fun activities, which she is tight-lipped about as of now.

Till then, she is busy exploring the surrounding waters of Mumbai near Gateway of India and Mandwa as she also achieves a different kind of bliss, that she enjoys a lot. "You are all on your own because you are the only one in the boat. All the decisions are yours and you don't have to share that with anyone. It is a lot of fun," shares a smiling Chandavarkar. However, she highlights that sailing is not as popular in the city, which boasts of its love for cricket at every nook and corner, even as it overlooks the vast expanse of water.

"In all other countries, especially in Europe, and Australia and New Zealand, it is pretty popular, and people have access to the water and the clubs. Even the schools have inter-college regattas for them to compete," she adds showcasing how the city lacks adequate infrastructure, especially when there is a lot of scope in the sport. "Firstly, it is a lot of fun. It is also an Olympic sport. There are a lot of things coming up in sailing, like the Sailing GP among others." If nothing else convinces Mumbaikars and the concerned authorities, then she says sailing is also just a fun way to take things off your mind. "You don't have to do it competitively. Maybe, you don't even have to sailing, it can just be any other water sport," adds Chandavarkar.

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Every time the teenager gets ready to compete around the world, she obviously packs up her gear that she is comfortable with, especially when she wants to try out something new. Apart from that, she reveals, "We charter a boat wherever we go, so sometimes I take my own sail because sometimes you get good sails, other times you don't." Like all good things, ask the Mumbaikar if she has a name for her boat, and she says, "I named my boat Dark Star, which is the name of a really fast jet. That was my first name, then I named my boat AC50 because the initials of my name are A and C and there is this really fast boat called F50."

Training in Mumbai's choppy waters
Even as the Mumbaikar is busy preparing for the Regatta in Hungary later this month, she is also training for the World Championships in July. "After that, I will be sailing the 29er. I am also looking forward to try sailing this really cool foiling boat called ‘The Wasp' because it is a boat that ‘flies','" adds Chandarvarkar, who says some of the biggest challenges in sailing is balancing everything out and being really calm while you deal with tiredness. All of which she has been trying to achieve under the watchful eye of her coach Dipesh Nerpagare, who spends six months in Finland and six months in India.

Nerpagare has been an instrumental part of Chandavarkar's journey as he has seen her grow from the first time she stepped onto the boat to go on to achieve medals for India at the world stage. "It has been a whole journey - right from trying the boat she sailed first before the Open Skiff came to India. I still remember the first day, she went on the Open Skiff. She said, ‘I don't know what to do when it is so fast, it is so quick and so much different from what I have done before'. On this journey, I have witnessed everything - right from not planning anything to getting close to the World Championships - it has been amazing."

The first time they sailed was in August 2019 in Pawna Lake in Pune. However, it wasn't smooth sailing. He explains, "Then we came back to Mumbai after the monsoon got over and we could sail here. However, the Covid-19 pandemic hit soon after, and then the accessibility in 2020-2021 went low. We also missed the World Championship, which we wanted to go for before 2022, it was in 2020, but was postponed to 2021 because of the protocols and we didn't train enough - the second and third wave kept going."

With so many hurdles, they had to delay her progress to try the Open Skiff. "We could have done better in the Under-12 at that time but then we had to enter in Under-15 in 2022, and she was the only boat training in India and there was no competition." The need for competitive sailing in Mumbai is important in such cases, he says because when you go overseas, you race against 150 sailors, which has 75 in each fleet. "You don't know what moves you need to do in the race and that was the biggest challenge because you don't know how to tackle such a situation when you come across it."

Giving us a quick lesson in sailing, Nerpagare says sailing is a very different sport than running or swimming, where you have your own lanes. He further explains, "Here you have your own lanes, and there is going to be traffic around you, and you have to tackle that to get out of it and you come across different levels of sailors and be first in the race. In one of the races, Anandi was in the top 10 even though she didn't finish it."

It was the first time that Nerpagare, who has been the assistant coach of the Indian national team from 2013 to 2016 including until the Rio Olympics Qualifications, says he knew Chandavarkar was really fast. "If you are there for at least half of the race, then you are really quick in your skills and speed." From there on, it was only upwards and onwards as they trained harder and results showed as they won the gold at the Phuket Kings Cup in Thailand not only in 2022 but also in 2023, as they juggle training time.

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He explains, "In India, you get is very limited to train because we have seasons. We have monsoon, and then October to February, it is not that great conditions because it is cold and the breeze is slightly moving in the morning and the afternoon sweat, so we faced those challenges, but we did quite a few events in 2023."

These include finishing in the top 10 in Italy in April 2023 among other events. He explains, "We had to do these challenges because she is alone in Mumbai. For all the other sailors when they sail, every day is a regatta championship, because there are 10 sailors in the top and they are all doing their moves every day but for her she is doing it alone and there is nobody around you, so you don't know how you could handle a situation because she doesn't face in sailing. Even the other sailors who are there are not as fast as her, and that is why we are aggressively doing these challenges."

Mumbai's need to boost its sailing culture

With Chandavarkar's progress, where does Nerpagare see Mumbai's sailing prowess? Being a coach for 12 years now with national and international experience, the Indian coach started by working in Mumbai at West Coast Marine Sailing School at Girgaum Chowpatty. "At that time, there was a place called H20, which was a boating and sailing place. It was a beach, and we didn't have a big infrastructure but there was accessibility of the beach in Mumbai. It was a very calm bay at Marine Drive and good for kids to learn, and it stopped."

After that, he went on to coach in Hyderabad and even coach a girl, who represented the national team. While assisting in training the national team, he was in Chennai, a city that also boasts of a rich sailing culture, and maybe Mumbai could learn from them. "When I was in Chennai, they had infrastructure at the port, which was given by the government. Mumbai also had it in 2009 but it ran only for one year." It is also why he says the authorities could explore the port as a medium to encourage sailing in the city. Nerpagare shares, "There was a sailing centre in Versova beach in 2019, where Anandi first stepped into the water. It ran for six months but had permission issues and had to be shut down."

Even as individuals like him try to shed light on the sport, one has to admit it is really expensive. It is also why he believes that with the kind of influence the government can have, they should invest in infrastructure for civilians to come and learn - at least to not take it up as a sport. He shares, "At least to experience sitting in the boat and sailing around in the sea for one hour, where you don't hear the horns, you can hear the water." For context, Nerpagare currently works in Finland, where the 130-year-old sailing club gets grants from the city to run it on an island. "We also get sponsors like Continental, Range Rover and the banks, and that money helps the club to grow because the equipment are so expensive." With Chandavarkar's shining bright at the world stage, he hopes there will be more awareness about sailing in Mumbai and the country to encourage more people to take it up.

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