Seafarers story: Ready to go!

Seddin, near Potsdam, is a good place to get away from the rest of the world. The forests of a nature reserve in Brandenburg are right outside your front door, and the idyllic Lake Seddin is just around the corner. When he’s not at sea for Hapag-Lloyd, Karsten Metzner lives here with his family and their mixedbreed dog, Bolle, in a cosy little house.

“In a few days, I’ll take command of the "Singapore Express" for sea trials as well as a gas test voyage in Singapore. The christening will also be held there after that,” the 50-year-old happily notes. He has already attended the christening ceremonies of the "Rio de Janeiro Express" and, in October 2023, the "Berlin Express". “Sailing on the new Hamburg Express class vessels is amazingly smooth, and it’s great to be at the helm of such a state-of-the-art ship,” Metzner says. “We often only realise how extraordinary our workplace is at christenings, when guests come on board and marvel at how huge everything is.” Metzner started his training in 1992. “I was in year 12,” he says, “and of the pile of information flyers from the careers advice centre, only the one for seafaring was still there. ‘I want to do that’, I said to my parents, who knew as little about seafaring as I did.” But the interview was a disaster, he continues, explaining: “I didn’t realise that the buses in the Free Port area of Hamburg only ran at shift-changing times, so I arrived far too late,” he says. “I was so flustered that I couldn’t even remember how a diesel engine works.” Nevertheless, the HR manager saw potential in the then 17-year-old, who received his acceptance letter two weeks later.

After spending 10 weeks learning metalworking in the training workshop of the shipbuilding company Blohm+Voss, Metzner boarded the rather old “Sierra Express” for a voyage to the Caribbean. “1,300 TEU and just 200 metres long, which is rather small by today’s standards,” he says. Even after 20-plus years, he can still list the ports they called at. “Ponce in Puerto Rico, Rio Haina in the Dominican Republic, Kingston in Jamaica, and Bridgetown on Barbados, where we were the only cargo ship among countless cruise ships,” he says. “Then came ports in Guatemala, Venezuela and Honduras as well as Puerto Limón in Costa Rica, where the sloths were hanging around the city park. It was unforgettable!” Despite the fond memories, tears don’t come to his eyes when he thinks of the “old” seafaring. “To be honest, I find it better today,” he says. “In addition to the safety standards, it’s also the style of leadership and the way we live and work together on board. Everyone works much more as equals!” This also applies to his own leadership style as captain, he adds.

After his apprenticeship as a ship mechanic, his path gradually led him from the engine room to the bridge following studies at the maritime academy in Hamburg. There, he earned the so-called “double patent”, meaning certificates to be both a captain and a chief engineer. He continues to be fascinated by life at sea. “The atmosphere on board is incomparable,” he explains. “You live and work together around the clock for weeks on end, getting to know every facet of the people around you. You can’t hide on board.” An aroma and the sound of clattering pots come from the kitchen, where Metzner’s wife, Oddet, is preparing lunch. The native of Mexico and psychologist by training invites us to the table, where we are joined by their children, Christina and Matthias.“People usually think that my wife and I met in a Mexican port, but it was in Berlin in the fall of 2009,” Metzner says with a smile. “I was at a phase of my life when I was wondering what to do next. Would I ever become a captain? Or find a wife? And what about starting a family?” Lost in thought, he continues, he was walking along the Spree river in Berlin near the Jannowitz Bridge when someone with a Spanish accent asked him directions to the GDR Museum. “My reaction was unfriendly, as I wasn’t in the mood to talk,” he recounts. “But we were headed in the same direction, and she started up a conversation. Just before we reached the museum, I looked Oddet in the eyes for the first time. Suddenly I thought ‘She’s the one!’ and mustered all my courage to ask her to join me for a coffee. She said yes, and we lost track of time while talking and talking!” They met again the very next day and became a couple. “And less than two weeks later, Arnold Lipinski, our former head of maritime personnel, informed me that I was being promoted to captain,” Metzner adds. “So I became a husband and a captain in 2010. What a stroke of luck!”

However, his first voyage as a captain didn’t go quite so smoothly. “It was just a four-week voyage on the ‘Liverpool Express’ from Hamburg to New York,” he recounts. “But, in Southampton, a twistlock fell on a worker’s shoulder while he was unloading containers and seriously injured him. We didn’t have any problems administering first aid, but it took the ambulance an hour to get there, which felt like a damn long time. Fortunately, the guy was built like an ox and recovered.” While off the Azores on the crossing, the captain and his crew encountered one low-pressure system after another. “I thought to myself, ‘If things continue like this, we’ll end up in Havana instead of New York’, so we decided to sail through the eye of the storm,” Metzner says. “I was confident about my decision, because that hurricane passed by quite quickly – and we made it. After that voyage, I knew I was in the right place!” And what was the story with the cheeky macaque? “That was on the ‘Dalian Express’,” he responds. “The monkey, which must have come on board in Laem Chabang, Thailand, was hanging out on the forecastle. We tried to lure him with food, but catching a monkey? Impossible! So we stopped feeding him in the hopes that he’d grow weak. He eventually withdrew a bit until we arrived in Vung Tàu, Vietnam, near Ho Chi Minh City. The pilots had just arrived on the bridge when the monkey suddenly climbed up over the superstructure, held on to the windscreen wiper, and peed on the bridge window. The pilots just laughed. The macaque finally disappeared just as he’d arrived – by climbing ashore on the first line.”