Ques­tions

Which in­ci­dents does the Port of Ham­burg have to be pre­pared for?

We have 9,000 ocean­go­ing ships call­ing at the Port of Ham­burg every year – mak­ing 18,000 ship move­ments in and out of the port in total. This is in ad­di­tion to feeder ships, in other words small sup­plier and con­tainer ships, which often moor at sev­eral berths at the same time. This means the fig­ures add up to about 24,500 ship move­ments that we have to safely co­or­di­nate. Nor­mally, the ships re­port to us 24 hours in ad­vance to their ar­rival; more time is needed for large ships. For in­stance, ships with a deep draught can only sail up the Elbe dur­ing high tide. 

The growth in the size of ships is a spe­cial chal­lenge for us. When a ship­ping com­pany plans a new­build, and this should call at the Port of Ham­burg, we have to de­ter­mine dur­ing an elab­o­rate as­sess­ment on a ship han­dling sim­u­la­tor if this is pos­si­ble or under which cir­cum­stances it is pos­si­ble. This re­quires that we know the gen­eral di­men­sions of the ship and the very pre­cise data on the ship’s abil­ity to ma­noeu­vre. Based on this in­for­ma­tion, we cre­ate a vir­tual model with which we then iden­tify dur­ing the sim­u­la­tion under which con­di­tions the ship can safely call at port. In other words, at which wind speed and at which tide level, as well as how many tug­boats are needed for the ship. 

To­gether with the pi­lots, and with the in­volve­ment of the ship­ping com­pany, we go through var­i­ous sce­nar­ios. For in­stance, when new ma­noeu­vre strate­gies are de­vel­oped for han­dling the ship, the pi­lots in­volved pass on this in­for­ma­tion to their col­leagues in the port pilot fra­ter­nity within the scope of train­ing events so that only pi­lots go aboard ships for the maiden call who are al­ready fa­mil­iar with the ma­noeu­vring of the new ship class. For the pro­gram­ming of the vir­tual model, we en­sure that the ships are slightly eas­ier to con­trol in re­al­ity than in the sim­u­la­tion. This gives us lee­way when it comes to safety. After the maiden call, a com­par­i­son be­tween the real and the vir­tual call is made in order to check if the val­ues de­ter­mined in the sim­u­la­tor are also re­li­able. This is a costly and time-con­sum­ing process, but ab­solutely es­sen­tial for safety, es­pe­cially in nar­row fair­ways. We are cur­rently in touch with three ship­ping com­pa­nies who want to send ships of 23,000 TEU ca­pac­ity to Ham­burg in the near fu­ture. This is an ex­cit­ing chal­lenge in every re­spect. 

Not only the calls being made by big ships need to be con­sid­ered for the port – Ham­burg is Ger­many’s largest sea­port and, after Duis­burg, the coun­try’s sec­ond-largest in­land wa­ter­way port. The many in­land wa­ter­way ves­sels, har­bour ves­sels, tra­di­tional ships and sport boats also need space within the port. 

How did you come to want to be a sea­farer and how did you be­come a Port Cap­tain?

I’m from an old sea­far­ing fam­ily in East Frisia. Ba­si­cally, all of my an­ces­tors were beach­combers or sailors [laugh­ing]. No, but hon­estly, we were nearly all cap­tains or pi­lots. As a pupil, dur­ing my school hol­i­days in the sum­mer, I spent a five-week trainee­ship on a coaster on the North and Baltic Seas. What was ini­tially thought to scare me away from the ca­reer, as my fam­ily had hoped, turned out to amaze me for sea­far­ing. I started stud­ies in nau­ti­cal sci­ence fol­low­ing my ap­pren­tice­ship and gained my diploma as In­dus­trial En­gi­neer, be­fore fi­nally going out on the high seas with my ship mas­ter’s cer­tifi­cate in hand. 

Back then, you were at sea for six to nine months as a rule of thumb. And when I started my own fam­ily, I moved to Ham­burg to work on land. First in a steve­dor­ing en­ter­prise where the load­ing and un­load­ing of ships was co­or­di­nated. From there I quickly moved up to be­come head of a quay op­er­at­ing com­pany. Then this po­si­tion as Port Cap­tain was ad­ver­tised, and I sim­ply ap­plied for it. I wasn’t cer­tain if being a pub­lic ser­vant was the right thing for me, but then I got the job and, at the age of 35, was the youngest Port Cap­tain far and wide. Now 25 years have passed. I’m happy here and every­one seems to be quite sat­is­fied with me. I would say that I have found my dream job here, as I would enjoy stay­ing on until re­tire­ment. 

Which tasks does the head of the har­bour mas­ter’s di­vi­sion have?

The main task is def­i­nitely guar­an­tee­ing the safe and smooth run­ning of ship traf­fic in all areas, es­pe­cially, though, for ship­ping. We do this at the Nau­ti­cal Cen­tre, one of the world’s most mod­ern traf­fic con­trol cen­tres. Here is where we de­cide when ships can de­part, how and where they pass each other and so on. Our three Har­bour Mas­ter’s Of­fices co­or­di­nate the traf­fic within the port, with a focus on the in­land wa­ter­way trans­port and har­bour nav­i­ga­tion. On top of this, our task is to pre­pare the nec­es­sary ad­just­ments to the port reg­u­la­tions, clar­ify per­mits, equip­ment and use of port ve­hi­cles or to en­sure the im­ple­men­ta­tion of anti-ter­ror reg­u­la­tions within the port in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the river po­lice. 

What does your av­er­age day at work look like?

I take care of some things my­self, and other things I del­e­gate out. I have after all 50 highly qual­i­fied em­ploy­ees who go through six months of com­pre­hen­sive in­tro­duc­tion when they begin work­ing for HPA, after gain­ing ex­pe­ri­ence as a cap­tain or ship of­fi­cer at sea. This means I don’t have to tell every­one what they should be doing. I ex­pect my col­leagues to work in­de­pen­dently within their area and to also make de­ci­sions, but nat­u­rally keep be abreast of what is going on. If I am on hol­i­days or can’t be reached, some­one fills in for me or the head of our Nau­ti­cal Cen­tre is avail­able for ques­tions on traf­fic con­trol. 

Nor­mally, at the be­gin­ning of the week, on Mon­days, the sched­ule and dates for the week are dis­cussed with my as­sis­tant and my sub­sti­tute – and these can nat­u­rally change spon­ta­neously at any time. In ad­di­tion to my ap­point­ments, I cor­re­spond with my col­leagues in other coun­tries and par­tic­i­pate in in­ter­na­tional work­ing groups. For ex­am­ple, just re­cently a del­e­ga­tion from abroad was here to learn about how we at the Port of Ham­burg han­dle traf­fic con­trol dur­ing foggy weather. Ba­si­cally, it’s al­ways about en­sur­ing safety in the port. 

What do you like most about your job?

There are ac­tu­ally three things: first, my po­si­tion, the high­est you can go as a nau­ti­cal of­fi­cer. Sec­ond, that we, all the col­leagues at HPA work­ing to­gether, can help to de­velop the port fur­ther, and that I am not only in­te­grated in plan­ning and processes, but also in the op­er­a­tive go­ings-on. And, fi­nally, the team­work among all the stake­hold­ers in the port: the ship­ping com­pa­nies, the ship­ping, the quay op­er­a­tors and the as­so­ci­a­tions. All in all, I’m amazed by the di­ver­sity of the tasks, which are both chal­leng­ing and a lot of fun!

You just cel­e­brated your 25th an­niver­sary as Port Cap­tain. Dur­ing these years, what is the most sig­nif­i­cant change you have ex­pe­ri­enced in the work­place?

We have to adapt to con­tin­u­ally larger ships. The wa­ter­ways are not able to grow in the same di­men­sion. When I began, con­tainer ships had a ca­pac­ity of 6,000 to 7,000 TEU – today, we ex­pect ships with 23,000 TEU. This is in ad­di­tion to pas­sen­ger ships, which didn’t exist to such a high ex­tent back then. Now, Ham­burg han­dles roughly 900,000 pas­sen­gers a year. 

The tech­nol­ogy has nat­u­rally changed com­pletely. An enor­mous shift has taken place. Back then, we had a lot of tech­nol­ogy in place, but it was noth­ing com­pared to today’s stan­dard. Young col­leagues can hardly be­lieve that we didn’t have mo­bile phones! Now we are in a com­pletely dif­fer­ent realm with digi­ti­sa­tion, and the 5G net­work will give us yet an­other sig­nif­i­cant boost.

Do you also work dur­ing the har­bour birth­day cel­e­bra­tions?

Yes, there is a water work­ing group for all the water ac­tiv­i­ties at the har­bour birth­day cel­e­bra­tions, and I head this group. Here is where we de­ter­mine what is hap­pen­ing when, which ac­tiv­i­ties are tak­ing place on the water, which ships are berthing where, and many more. My col­leagues and I are in­ten­sively in­te­grated into the har­bour birth­day cel­e­bra­tions, just like we are for ship nam­ing cer­e­monies and other large-scale mar­itime events. 

In your job, you con­stantly have to be alert. How do you tune out best after a stress­ful work­ing day?

You have to be able to com­pletely tune out in my job, and I’m able to do this well. My wife says that I can re-join a per­sonal con­ver­sa­tion smoothly when I have been dis­tracted by a call from the of­fice. This nat­u­rally is only pos­si­ble if you trust your peo­ple and let them work in­de­pen­dently. And you have to be able to keep a dis­tance to things; not let every­thing get to you. This isn’t al­ways pos­si­ble, but most of the time it is. I’m also quite busy in my free time. I have three chil­dren, three grand­chil­dren and a dog – all of whom keep me on my toes. Some­times I come up with the best ideas when out on a walk with my dog. Maybe be­cause I’m in such a re­laxed mood and can then have a dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive on things. In any case, I’m in the best of health and can sleep well at night. So every­thing is great. 

Which spot in the port fas­ci­nates you the most?

I’m es­pe­cially fas­ci­nated when I am stand­ing at the Lan­dungsbrücken and look­ing out over the har­mony of move­ment among the ocean­go­ing, in­land wa­ter­way and port ves­sels and sport boats. This is truly unique to Ham­burg. 

Thank you for the in­ter­view.