'Sethu Samudram does not make nautical sense'

• The Sethu Samudram project, if I can put it simply from a mariner's stand point, does not make any nautical sense.


• We mariners call the coast between Rameswaram and Cuddalore the cyclone coast. The India Meteorological Department has assigned this coastline as a high risk probability. To site one example, in 1964, the Pamban Bridge was washed away by a severe cyclonic storm.


• Marine scientists have identified five areas on the Indian coastline they call high-sinkage pits, and one of them happens to be the Palk Straits.


• If you take global shipping trends today, to reduce operating cost, they go in for larger ships of the order of 60,000 deadweight tonnes and above. A 60,000 deadweight tonne carrier will need anything in excess of 17 metres of draft. And as far as tankers go, the days of the super tanker are gone and you see only very large crude carriers of the type of 150,000 and 185,000 tonnes. It makes more sense to have such big tankers as in one voyage, you are bringing in more cargo and reduce your operating cost. None of these big ships will ever be able to use the Sethu Samudram. So, the question is, for whom are you building the canal? 30,000 tonnes was alright when Sethu Samudram was conceived in the early fifties and the sixties.


• The voyage distance from Kolkata to Tuticorin around Sri Lanka works out to 1227 nautical miles. If you went through the canal, it is 1098 nm. So, you are saving just 120 odd nm.


• The majority of our bulk carriers go at a speed between 12 and 13 knots. That is the average speed at sea. When you go through Sethu Samudram, the point to be remembered is, you cannot proceed at the speed at which you are sailing at sea. The reason is the shallow water effect or what we call the 'Squat Effect'. So, the moment you enter Sethu Samudram, you have to reduce the sped by 50 per cent or more depending on the conditions prevailing at that particular time.

To one of the questions on the Sethu Samudram controversy, Captain (retired) H Balakrishnan of the Indian Navy who has been associated with the navy for 32 years, replies -

Q.Those who support the Sethu Samudram Canal compare it to the Suez Canal and the Panama Canal and say the Sethu Samudram is the Suez of the East.

A.In the case of the Suez and the Panama canals, ships save thousands of nautical miles in sailing distance and hundreds of hours in sailing time, where as the Sethu Samudram where a ship will probably save a few hundred miles and at the most two hours in sailing time. This is the difference.

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