The Wavemakers Podcast

From Seafarer to Ship Owner and Surviving a Pirate Attack - YC’s Maritime Grit

• BetterSea • Season 2 • Episode 11

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In this episode of The Wavemakers Podcast, we sit down with Yasovardhan
Chinni (YC). YC grew up in a small Indian town and in pursuit of financial stability chose a non-traditional path into shipping. From marine engineering to life on board the vessel, YC turned his seafaring experience into a full-fledged maritime business portfolio. From the engine room to the boardroom and asset ownership, YC shares his inspiring story of resilience, calculated risk-taking, and building YC Ventures—an ecosystem supporting maritime innovation.

🚢 Whether you're in shipping, building a startup, or just looking for career inspiration—this episode offers raw insight and practical wisdom.

🔗 Find out more about YC Ventures: https://ycventure.us/

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🔗 Related Resources and Links:
• Follow Gordana Ilic on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gordanailicphd/
• Follow us on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@BetterSea

📩 Have questions or comments? Feel free to reach out via email at gordana.ilic@bettersea.tech

[Music] Hello and welcome to another episode of The Wavemakers Podcast where we focus on the stories of the leaders driving change at the intersection of maritime decarbonization and digital transformation my guest today has a very interesting story He has completed the full circle: from being on board a vessel to owning a vessel and today we will dive into what that was like what drives him and perhaps try to get some nuggets of wisdom as we navigate our maritime waters Please welcome today Chini is or YC that I'll stick to yes that's good thank you for being my guest hi and I usually ask the guests to they to explain themselves in their own words as we always focus on people's titles but actually I want to look behind the titles hi good afternoon thanks for bringing me here yes my name is Chini Wardan and I come from a district in uh India near Chennai it's a Nelor it's a small town with 1 million population and I studied marine engineering then went to the ships embarked the journey to become a chief engineer then came to Dubai to start my short life then became an entrepreneur became a ship owner today and now doing a multiple businesses into maritime industry and diversified under the setup called YC Ventures and what inspired you to join the industry in the first place to be very frank it's money uh-huh uh we come from a very middle-class family and uh the people in uh my place they go to the software industry and we see a lot of uh all the American uh dream is to become go out to America and settle there so we are coming from a business background family so that makes me to think like uh I should do something innovation and do something aspirationally good that can get me good money at the same time to reach my requirements so I chose Marine which was something very unique that time I don't want to take an unique normal path like a marine like a software engineer or a doctor so that was the reason I chose the marine as my profession mhm so it took a lot of difficulties to go and study marine engineering coming from a district level and then I finished my marine engineering then became a chief engineer and that's the journey and then you tried to challenge yourself more and more yes yes i keep challenging myself to reach to the next destination because that's how we have been brought up in the maritime industry so it's even though it looks very simple but it keeps giving you challenges so you have to embrace the journey and when did you get an idea to go for entrepreneurship how did that come about yes uh as I said uh we come from a business background family like in my family everyone do business but not to the scale of an entrepreneurship level like they run the shops they go in the morning they come back in the evening so on the table when we sit in the dinner we we spoke about uh only on the businessman so that gives an acumen to do the businesses and uh so when I see an opportunity in the maritime industry that there is a lot of things that can be achieved so I didn't just took the path to become an entrepreneur I finished from the bottom level I entered marine engineering I finished and I became a chief engineer so after I became chief engineer I became a fleet superintendent then after that I decided now it's my time to embark on a journey so I started a ship management company and from there I started doing something because you are always with an engineer's mind so I have to excel into my commercial mindset so that's where I turned a lot of uh traders into ship owners I started purchasing ships i started working on the commercial aspects so I can wear the cap of a technical versus commercial depending on the situation so that gave me a good entrepreneurial journey mhm this is something I'm trying to grow I'm trying to grow my commercial hat a little bit more very important very important but I guess experience is the teacher here yes i mean there is no shortcut in life uh but uh with today's uh availability of uh market yes there are some shortcuts but still the journey and experience will definitely teach something different mhm and uh as you were chasing the challenges what were some of your traits or something that you would say to yourself to encourage yourself throughout the way yeah I mean uh as my family keeps saying me that I adapt to the situations very easily and I take uh every situation and try to solve the problems uh to the best possible method so this attitude is very much important especially when you are sailing as a sailor like we come across very tough situations there are storms there are piracy issues there are so many other technical uh failures that makes you work for continuous 36 to 48 hours and there are team of people on board the vessel right so you are running a multi-million dollar vessel with a cargo worth of more million dollars and then you have a people who are acting as a crew they're all away from the families so the emotions and the the local environment everything matters so how do you embrace all these people together and make them achieve to a success is something you need a very good resilience and so I believe that adaptation of mine to various environments makes me successful even today with the YC Venture you meet so many new talents but they don't have a definite path how to reach to the goal and that's where I try to tinker and connect between the new entrepreneurs with their dream journeys with my ecosystems and experience mhm and as you come across uh different entrepreneurs do you see any traits that are coming like can you spot already based on your experience what it takes to be successful yes uh so while uh ideas are coming these days because the the times are changing right so there are many ideas the people are coming up with a lot of ideas my generic advice to anyone is put your ideas on paper and after 1 hour you read that you will see some flaws again you write and then you see but before that they want to give a try in the entrepreneur journey that I'm not very much optimistic because this is not to give a try this is to give your best so that best has to be a bulletproof model but here there is instantaneous viral behavior in the market where everyone wants to succeed in a very short span of time so that some people are succeeding I'm not saying that they don't succeed but that's not the only easy shortcut to success that's what I'm believing so I feel everyone should do a bit of more on what they are planning what is their dream put it on paper write it down in such a way that you have a foolproof model then there is no shortage of money in the market there are enough entrepreneurs who are willing to you know help you grow you and then take you further so I believe that is the reason interestingly that has been the start of Max's company we actually did a vision board each individually and then put it together and then when we realized that we are aligned there and that also how to get where we want to get is aligned then we decided to take a plunge and leave corporate jobs and just put all into this uh very much I mean and it takes a lot of uh you know decision to leave your comfortable life and then uh enter and embark onto this journey but again I think one has to taste to achieve something yeah and I at least find it within myself that it is this entrepreneurial voice like something inside of you is just keep telling you just bugging you the whole time and again I do come from a family my mom had her own shop etc so I can relate to this early exposure and it probably plants seeds so as you grow up you know that that's too a possibility and then this other voice in you is like are we there yet yes hello i'm sure you must be getting some kind of uh like why are you leaving your comfortable job and then trying to do this it's a risk because uh at at a low level entrepreneurship obviously they don't want to take you to do and that's why they expect you to go out and do some job and be happy for you but but still that bug is keep Yeah my parents like oh my god why are you doing this to yourself like you know it's similar like I come from Serbia and I grew up while it was bombarded so my parents really struggled to provide food on the table and then they kind of push you out into the world like you get a good education and then you just like jump into risk and I think it's not their ideal scenario for an only child that's also a woman you know we have something like uh in my part of the place if you go into marine engineering you don't get a girl for marriage because nobody dares to give their daughter to a marine engineer who I mean I'm talking about uh south side of the India not the entire India but still there are I mean there are so many confusions and uh clarifications which people don't have about because shipping is completely a very niche market people doesn't know much about it i think you are doing a great job of bringing the stories back into the so the new generation can understand yeah I hope so i I do hope so and it is somewhat because I was um new to it it's not something that came as a family legacy the exposure of it and then also when I started talking to people uh by driving innovation but I had the opportunity to engage with different departments and talk to many different backgrounds to understand their problems and then to hear their stories and that is where I realized this is a whole new universe exactly there's so much to it thank you so much and I became curious about this there's so many untold stories yeah yes and stories from being on board or even like daytoday challenges that they solve and how they solve it and how different geopolitical situations affect it uh we don't think about it but all of that is playing out behind all the stuff that we see around us how do you see the industry evolving the industry is in evolving to be something like a you can see a small kid nowadays watching the Instagram res and how he's getting adapted to the mobile we were not having that access before so in the same way the shipping industry is completely shifting to a new era where we are having nowadays the systems that are even predicting what kind of troubles that the ships can have and even some kind of blockchain technology which is helping the paperwork to be more comfortable there is connectivity on board nowadays which is sometimes an advantage at the same time some disadvantage for some people but the shipping is completely going into a digital transformation mhm so and that is because people keep saying oh shipping is still in a very old era so but that is being changed these days and at YC ventures and I'm also trying to be a part of the new change by investing into the new technologies helping and supporting the new companies which are driving this change mhm and how does it feel as a ship owner when you're faced with the push from the regulations and the push from uh different even stakeholders uh trying to improve or not trying to improve and trying to resist the change and then startups pushing to deploy their technologies and run pilots how do you manage all of that yes it's an interesting question um every seafarer if he's connected in the marine industry it's a dream for him to own a vessel but owning a vessel we call it as owning like a white elephant which will cost you even if it is idle whether you're using it or you're not using it you have to spend a lot of money that means you should have a deep pocket to even dream to become a ship owner so it's not a very easily achievable task and that's why you can see many people there are traditional ship owners who have been running shipping as a family business and you don't see big investors entering into the shipping to own the ship because it's a very uh different aspect of business mhm it's not like real estate it's not like any other production company it's it's a completely uh what do you call a dynamic industry so once you have you be you dream of becoming a ship owner I have achieved this task recently but before that I have done something very interesting i have collected a like-minded people of 20 to 30 people i have uh like a arranged a small fund which is like an internal fund with 20 interested uh captains chief engineers who want to become and then I ventured into a project I bought a ship I made all these 20 people ship owners 
so and that is what the new technology nowadays is coming where this 1% ownership and all that coming but this was done by me a long time ago on an excel sheet because that time we don't have the softwares so that the happiness of each and every person that they own a part of the ship was really something you cannot count with the money or something so now coming back to your question of what challenges and how the present situations are pushing the ship owner if the ship owner is just acting as an investor he will be considered having some troubles but if like the people are coming from the maritime background who understands the shipping they enjoy the every trouble that is being forced so they will never take that regulations are something they are going to face because they want to improvise the segment they have been sailing like I'm sailing on the ship before so now if there is some regulation that is making the life better I as a ship owner will always be more happy to support that system rather than thinking it's because it's not just the money there is a sentiment that is driving me to become an owner otherwise you have many other options to make your money on something else but the final goal of being a ship owner itself is a legacy so I still believe that all the new changes are a boon to the owners they should not take it as a negative they should take it as a positive and try to adapt to the new systems and then achieve the neutral balance somewhere mhm and what kind of a fleet do you think we will be seeing as we approach 2050 my god how will that look like this is very I mean if I can answer this question this is like can you expect the price of the dollar versus the the Indian rupee in the same way like a gold price we cannot expect that because the trends are changing due to the geopolitical situations so I believe in diversification and that is the reason I own bul carriers I own tankers I own containers so I try to balance so that if one industry is not doing very well at least the other one will take care of the story so but I still believe the green technology is going to play a lot of role in the shipping and uh that is where the industry is trying their luck a lot of new entrepreneurs and very deep pocket companies are investing heavily some are talking about uh h AI-driven battery technologies some are talking about hydrogen so that they can emit only 30% of water vapor as the gas and some people are still thinking about carbon collection which is a completely a new business model they would like to collect the carbon and then make something out of that i mean it's it's completely evolving so every asset class has got its own agenda in the market whether it is bulk carrier tanker or container but still I believe the gas carriers is one segment which is going to be the green because the gas requirements are more and more increasing in every country yes well now that you've mentioned different ships I will ask you if you were a ship which ship would you be and why yeah so then I think my answer would be I would like to be in a modern multi-purpose vessel where I would like to utilize my cargo space to the bulk when there is a necessity convert it into a container when the market is peak like co and then shift it into an modern research technology hub on board the vessel that can help me to implement any other requirements so I will try to maximize my return on the investment by getting into a multi-purpose vessel m that is smart you are always diversifying the portfolio right and managing the risk well that teaches me something about life as well when it comes to working with younger people uh what do you aspire to pass on um as I said uh patience and uh as I said the most important is the adaptability because I can see the focus by the younger generation is missing where they want instant results so the one thing I would like to convey is have some patience focus on your dreams and everything will come in your way mhm that's a nice one just keep swimming yes and focus on the vision because uh if you ask me to say what did I achieve in 30 seconds it's difficult because it's a two decades journey so there are so many ups and downs so many experiences and uh so it's very difficult to summarize and give a 30 seconds advice to youngster I don't prefer to give that okay then uh we have talked briefly about pirates and this was just because of the previous session and I promised to Angel (camera lady) who is recording right now that we will share the story so can you share uh the story of bypassing the pirate attack yeah so piracy was uh is is a buzz word now in the everyone of course they like to understand what exactly is happening but sailing on the vessel when the real incidents happen is really a nightmare mhm so I'd like to share one of the incident in 2008/9 and uh so I was sailing along with my wife and uh there was a risk when you are crossing from Egypt to the Red Sea mhm so we were informed by the company that it's not safe to have the females on board it's better we sign them off so I convinced my wife and uh she said okay and she got down from Egypt and then we were crossing the Red Sea we had multiple attacks where we can see the whole night certain speed boats are chasing you so we were prepared with kind of like fencing and we need to there will be an alarm raised by the navigation officers and you need to be fully awake and run to your citadel which is called as a safe place on board the ship we create something called as a shelter so that's called citadel so we go there so the whole night we were not able to sleep because every 1 hour there is an alert and uh I mean anything can go wrong and the same thing happened to one of my junior in the college where he was kept ransom for 6 months to one year wow and in Somalia and uh the kind of disruption that happened to his personal life and uh it is something we can't just Yeah it is a big drama it's a big drama it's a big trauma to be specific that guy has now become one of the chief of the relief operations and now he's helping so many other crew who passed through this kind of issues so I mean it's it's it's not something just we can think of but today if I realize and recollect how I have stayed there and if something could have happened Mhm i'm a vegetarian so if I'm get stuck in Somalia I'm not going to get anything that I can eat so I can relate so those are the tough times i mean but thank God now with the improved security and armed guards on board things are changing but uh those days is Yes and thank you for sharing that also because I do think that people don't think about it but when they are offshore right and actually these 15 20 people on each vessel go through so much and work so hard and that is because we are impulsive on clicking deliveries on our phone right and wanting things instantly exactly but we rarely hear the stories of what is at stake and what it takes and it's incredible the the bravery and the trauma and also once they stop sailing uh how to recover from that and yes I think you can watch Captain Phillips Abyss uh it was a rail incident on one of the container vessel the captain was uh I mean they boarded and then they made a big mess out of it so it's tough it's tough life as you said like sometimes we were having breakdowns when you are on a very heavy swell of the weather like we had storms in Pacific Ocean when you're crossing so you need to rectify the engines the people at the shore can just say to the you guys make it fast but imagine when you are rolling at 20 30° and then you need to fix your marine engines and then you make it ready and then sail out because there There is no other resource right there is no other way anyone can come and help you either you do it or you don't do it and the size of it right people Yes of course so the willpower it that's that's what I like about being a seafarer is it teaches you to be strong mhm but still be humble how do you react in these situations like you're just I guess sharply focused on achieving the task yes i mean I mean that is the only way i'm not saying that only I'm the best but there are everyone I mean you talk about with any seaf farer they have gone through so many cycles of this kind of thing mhm one of my friend he lost his hand while uh doing some incident and something fell down and I mean there are so many incidents and these are tragic mhm so but still that's what we always pray when you go on ship to work even now I say to every employee and everyone go as a single piece and come as a single piece that means you are successful mhm yes without losing anything without getting some people got heart attacks some captains have lost because of the stress they have come through even got heart attacks so it's it's it's a tough life yeah and uh with that also maybe it's a good message to share across as again the society expects changes the entrepreneurs expect pilots and this is another element that you have to deal with right and making sure that the people are good and safe and on board with it because you want this uh psychological stability in the team it's it's important for them And then you have to balance all these different risks right and opportunities 100% i believe now everyone is driving towards it there is a balance that is coming and I hope uh things will make further changes like during our times there was no phone calls there was no there was only satellite phone which you can speak but now things everything is on board so there's Wi-Fi there is a connectivity so people I believe even if they are passing through some stress you still can connect to your family and you can cool down yourself so Mhm and today when you get up how come you still have the drive to do more of it and to be to challenge yourself more yes i mean that is something every person has to do like you have to keep inventing yourself what best you can do more and this is not just again not for money here at this stage because the the stage where I said is something when you are in a middle-ass family you have some dreams you want to achieve something you want to prove to the world that you can do something that's a different uh but now it's about reinventing yourself like what you can give back to the society and what you can help the new generations to come forward uh so that will the growth and success will automatically give you money so money is just a byproduct i always aim that way so the don't run behind the byproduct run for the main cause the things will follow you mhm so that's makes me uh more interesting and try to diversify more i'm now today into green technology businesses we are entering into the new maritime technologies so wherever there is a diversification but keeping the core of Marine as my heart you know so that's it sounds like you are really holding it in your heart using that as one of the pillar values yeah you can say like like that's a pillar but still you can still diversify you can go into technology you can go into crewing you can go into ship owning you can get into different types of assets you can get into some other sustainable things so that's how it is and uh I also like to switch the dynamics and also allow you to ask me anything so that it's not always one-sided and sure I think you must have been knowing the stories of so many people and so many other guests so what did you derive out of all this like and what made you feel more passionate towards the maritime sector i have noticed that there is a consistency about that resilience and like having the vision but being focused on the moment and doing uh best what you are doing now and through the repetition of that uh also excelling right and that has been a common element throughout and as you've mentioned this um agility and to respect tradition but to know where it comes from and with that to be open to whatever new is happening and wise to recognize the moment to put them together that's good so I hope I can implement that personally as well yes of course and you are doing a great job by bringing on the table i mean as I said this sector not many people have I mean no one has touched the this sector of and you have done something good there i there are some more but yeah still still a long journey but perhaps there's a different perspective to it uh I hope that we inspire some I wish you best of luck thank you uh one of our friends totally not from shipping he said nowadays when I see a ship I just think of the two of you and he's like following our stories on LinkedIn so it's like he totally opened a new world for me feel free to come onto the ship anytime you can have a tour of the ship whenever the vessel comes to Jeali or somewhere okay well I will take you up on this i would love to sure thank you thank you for being my guest today thanks a lot for inviting and it's pleasure talking to you likewise

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