# INS Sutlej (J17)

INS Sutlej (J17) is a hydrographic survey ship of the Sandhayak class in the Indian Navy, under the Southern Naval Command. Like other ships of the same class, this ship is also equipped with an Operating Theater and associated equipment needed to attend to medical emergencies at sea.

## Ship history

The ship was built by Goa Shipyard Limited and commissioned into the Naval service at the Kochi naval base. The Sutlej is equipped with a range of surveying, navigational and communication systems. The next-generation surveying systems provided on board include the multi-beam swath echo sounding system, differential global positioning system, motion sensors, sea gravimeter, magnetometer oceanographic sensors, side scan sonars and an automated data logging system. These are designed to meet the stringent international/ISO 9002 digital survey accuracy standards required for the production of electronic navigation charts and publications.
The Sutlej is powered by two diesel engines and is capable of sustained speeds. Sutlej was the first ship to enter the newly built Karwar naval base harbor of INS Kadamba in 2004. This ship is the namesake of HMIS Sutlej, the Black Swan-class sloop, which served in the Royal Indian Navy (RIN) during World War II.

## Survey work

INS Sutlej in 2016 completed the joint Hydrographic Survey of Mkoani harbour of Tanzania with the objective to prepare a navigational chart of the harbor that will be used by the port authorities and ships for navigation. In the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami, the ship was deployed to Sri Lanka to conduct a hydrographic survey off the coast of Galle and Colombo harbours on request of Sri Lankan authorities. A medium refit of the ship was completed from 2010 to 2012 at Cochin Shipyard Ltd. On completion of the refit, she has undertaken hydrographic surveys of Porbandar, Kandla, Kerala Coast and Lakshadweep Islands. Alongside special meteorological observations, geo-physical, tidal and tidal stream observations were carried out at Azhikkal, Kannur, Vadakara (Murat), Beypore and Kadalundi river mouth at the request of an external agency. The ship had another medium refit from 2019 to March 2021 at Hindustan shipyard Visakhaptnam and then returned to naval base Kochi at the end of March 2021. In 2021, 4 months later, it undertook a survey of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, a survey of Myanmar for 3 months in November 2021, and a survey of Port Blair. It also went for a Maldives survey in April 2022. The ship went for a Gujarat and Goa survey in December 2022. In February 2023, it went to Myanmar for a survey for 3 months.

## Relief work

In the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami Sutlej alongside sister ship INS Jamuna, INS Sarvekshak, INS Ghorpad and INS Kirch was deployed as part of Operation Rainbow. The ships provided relief assistance in Sri Lanka in both government held and LTTE held rebel areas. In mid 2016 the Sutlej, was one of two Indian Navy ships sent to Colombo from Southern Naval Command in Kochi, the other being the patrol vessel INS Sunayna, to help in relief work after Cyclone Roanu. In late 2016 the Sutlej provided relief assistance to the stricken fishing vessel Judan, with seven crew members on board, by towing them to the Kanyakumari port. The ship was also deployed in the aftermath of Gujarat earthquake at Kandla port to treat the injured.
The ship also won the Award of Best Ship 2022-23, unit citation 2022 and Best Survey Ship 2022-23.