INS Sunayna Returns to Port After Anti-piracy Deployment

KOCHI:
INS Sunayna, an offshore patrol vessel of the Indian Navy, successfully completed her anti- piracy deployment in the Gulf of Aden and arrived here early Friday morning, a Defence spokesman said.

The ship, based under the Southern Naval Command here, had to sustain herself without entering any port for 80 days due to COVID-19 pandemic, he said. She was fuelled and resupplied by tankers of the Indian Navy and US Navy, the spokesman said.

“Such an unbroken and sustained deployment at sea speaks of very high crew proficiency and morale of the ship”, he said. The ship was received by senior officers of the Southern Naval Command, who welcomed the crew back home and congratulated the ship on her sterling performance.

INS Sunayna is the second Saryu-class patrol vessel of the Indian Navy, designed and constructed indigenously by the Goa Shipyard Limited. It is designed to undertake fleet support operations, coastal and offshore patrolling, ocean surveillance and monitoring of sea lines of communications and offshore assets and escort duties.

Earlier, in June 2018 she was deployed to Yemen’s Socotra island as part of “Operation Nistar”, an Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) mission to evacuate Indian nationals from cyclone hit Socotra islands