In a landmark event set to make naval history, the Indian Navy will induct a traditionally constructed Ancient Stitched Ship at the Naval Base in Karwar on May 21, 2025. The ceremonial induction will be presided over by the Hon’ble Minister of Culture, Shri Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, who will officially unveil the ship’s name and mark its formal entry into the Navy’s heritage fleet.
The vessel is a faithful recreation of a 5th-century CE Indian ocean-going ship, inspired by a mural in the Ajanta Caves. The project represents a unique confluence of archaeology, naval engineering, and cultural preservation. It was developed under a tripartite agreement signed in July 2023 between the Indian Navy, the Ministry of Culture, and Goa-based M/s Hodi Innovations. The Ministry of Culture funded the initiative, with keel-laying held in September 2023 and launch in February 2025 at Hodi Shipyard in Goa.
Master shipwright Shri Babu Sankaran led a team of traditional artisans from Kerala in building the vessel using age-old techniques. Thousands of joints were stitched by hand using coconut coir ropes, natural resins, and wooden dowels—reviving a method that predates modern shipbuilding. With no surviving shipwrecks or blueprints from that era, the ship’s design was painstakingly extrapolated from Ajanta artwork, blending artistic interpretation with structural innovation.
To ensure seaworthiness, the Indian Navy collaborated with the Department of Ocean Engineering at IIT Madras for hydrodynamic testing. An internal structural analysis validated the ship’s strength, particularly its wooden mast system. The vessel features square sails and steering oars, echoing designs that once dominated Indian Ocean trade routes long before European maritime influences.
Following its induction, the Navy plans to deploy the ship on a transoceanic voyage from Gujarat to Oman, retracing ancient maritime trade routes and reviving India’s historical connections with the Arabian Peninsula. The journey will serve as a demonstration of both the ship’s functionality and India’s deep-rooted seafaring traditions.
This initiative showcases the Indian Navy’s commitment to cultural heritage and historical scholarship. It also highlights India’s once-dominant presence in maritime trade, which extended across the Indian Ocean for centuries. The ship’s construction preserves a rapidly vanishing art form that still survives in pockets along India’s Konkan coast for small fishing craft, ensuring that the skills and knowledge of stitched shipbuilding are passed down to future generations.
