Mahesh Ramachandran (Pic credit: Abhilash Tomy’s X post)
BENGALURU: Shock waves continue to sweep across the country’s sailing fraternity after Asian Games silver medallist Mahesh Ramachandran went missing, along with rally legend Hari Singh, in a speed boat accident near the Maldives coast early on Friday.
Ramachandran’s former colleagues and teammates remembered the retired Indian Navy commander as a great international athlete.Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW!Abhilash Tomy, a retired Navy commander, told TOI from Abu Dhabi, “He (Mahesh) was a great competitor and sailor. He was at his peak when I started sailing, so I was able to get a glimpse of him at his best. Our paths crossed many times and we took part in a few events as competitors. I have immense respect for him.”
One of Ramachandran’s finest moments came in 2006 at the Doha Asian Games when he guided his team to the silver medal. “First we won the gold at the Asian Championship and then we lost the gold at the Asian Games on the finish line in the match racing. Singapore won the gold after they finished the last race one second ahead of us,” Nitin Mongia, who was part of the fourmember Indian team, said.“We also did an Olympic campaign in the star class of boats. We started only at the start of 2004 and so we didn’t qualify for the Athens Games.
Later, we reached the top 15 in the world ranking, and during this time, there was a fourth-place finish in one of the regattas in Medemblik in the Netherlands. Again, at the Asian Championships in 2010, we won the silver,” Mongia recalled Ramachandran’s glory days. He was awarded the Arjuna award in 2002.“Ramachandran began as a pilot in the Navy before he moved to sailing. Ramachandran was a big hero for us,” Tomy, the first Indian to complete a solo, non-stop circumnavigation of the world under sail in 2013 said. Ramachandran was the brain behind the Watermanship Training Centre at the Naval Academy in Ezhimala, Kerala.
