"My earliest encounter with shipping was with my grandfather" - Captain Wolf Kaiser

Seafarers have eventful lives, so it’s hard to know where you should start their stories. Should we begin Wolf Kaiser’s story during his educational pe - riod as an ordinary seaman in the former East Germany? Or with the maiden voyage he took to Cuba, which was a world-opening experience for the then 16-year-old? Or with his love of cooking and how he later taught many ship cooks how to make classic German dishes? Or with the years following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany, which also meant a certain level of adjustment for life at sea? Or maybe with a potential stabbing on board, which he bravely prevented? All these stories are included in “Klor bi Anker”, the seven-volume memoirs the captain is currently writing. We sat down with a good-humored Captain Kaiser in Rostock, the city on the Baltic Coast of Germany where his journey began, to speak over Swiss pastries and Turkish coffee. 

Close to the water, far into the distance 

“My earliest encounter with shipping was with my grandfather, who had been a captain with the so-called White Fleet in Berlin,” Kaiser says. “We kids called him ‘Grandpa Ship’, and we visited him often. I was probably four or five years old and greatly impressed by how easily he could steer such a ship.” Then there was one day a bit over 10 years later, when he and his buddy Reinhard were standing in front of a big rolled-out map of the world in their classroom. They looked at the oceans and the continents, and read exotic names like Surabaya, Jakarta and Singapore. “That’s when we really got the itch to travel,” the captain recounts. 

His training years began on the MS “Georg Büchner”, a cargo and training vessel owned by the Rostock-based Deutsche See Reederei (DSR) – the national shipping line of East Germany – with room for up to 190 apprentices. “I will never forget our first voyage to Cuba,” Kaiser says. “We had been sailing for 14 days, and we had enjoyed good weather the entire time. We spotted the Azores first. Captain Schickedanz, a living legend at the DSR, sailed extra close to them so we could see more.” The young man never felt the pangs of homesickness. On the contrary, he fell in love with a Cuban woman and enjoyed his time off drinking beer on the beach. 

When asked about his writing, Kaiser says, “I feel like I’ve always been writing, but writing did really help me a lot as a captain.” At that time, he also recorded details about an attempted stabbing, writing: “We were sailing in the Caribbean on a 1,700 TEU ship. One of the seafarers on watch duty deliberately neglected his official duties, thereby risking considerable damage to the engine. As one would expect, this led to an official entry in the ship’s log. Then, the following night, I suddenly heard sounds, a wild banging on the wall. I went out to see what was going on: There in the corridor stood the seafarer who had gotten the reprimand. He had a crazed look in his eye and a long knife in his hand, which he was using to bust his way through the door to the chief engineer’s quarters. I was eventually able to subdue him with pepper spray and a small electric cattle prod.” With a hint of pride,” Kaiser adds, “I probably saved the chief engineer’s life.”

Hapag-Lloyd? Great idea!

After 15 years, the captain decided to look around again for a new job. A former acquaintance from his years as a student was working at Hapag-Lloyd, and he encouraged Kaiser to submit an application. This was followed by four job interviews and the question of whether he could maybe wear a suit to the next interview. “But I didn’t have one with me,” he says with a laugh. So he went out that very evening to buy a suit and tie, though he probably would’ve gotten the job even without them.

When asked whether there were also some adventures to be had with Hapag-Lloyd, Kaiser responds “No doubt!” before recounting another story. “We were sailing on the ‘London Express’ on the Pacific, heading from Asia toward Seattle and San Francisco. It was my second assignment on the ship. The first low was so nauspicious that we had to change course and first sail up along the Kuriles before we dared to make the leap over to the Aleutian Islands. But then a second powerful low with hurricane strength started forming to the south of us, so I decided to stop the ship. During this stop, we conducted a routine inspection and discovered that the main engine had a broken cylinder head, which called for a demanding and, most importantly, time-consuming repair. At around midnight, I quickly warmed up two tins of sausages and brought them with freshly baked baguettes to the hard-working engineers. They were completely flabbergasted, as they’d never had a captain bring them a snack in the engine room!”

In good times and bad: Time out and then returning to work

A pulmonary ailment put the otherwise robust captain out of action in 2013. “But I fought my way back to survive, and today I’m grateful not only to my wife and a few smart doctors, but also to my employer, Hapag-Lloyd, who stood by my side and gave me fantastic support during those difficult times,” Kaiser says.

In November 2014, the fully rehabilitated captain took command of the “Rotterdam Express”, a container ship. If you ask him today, after all these years, what advice he gives to young colleagues, his answer is unambiguous: “You have to be a doer! If something really grabs you and fills you with a burning passion, go for it. Then, instead of seeing problems, you will only see challenges that will enable you to grow!”

And what about the story involving the sculptures made out of Korean toilet paper and Mexican wood glue? “We had both on board when we were sailing on the container ship the ‘Düsseldorf Express’ from Mexico to Japan. And since I prefer to make something instead of drinking beer in the evening, I mixed the two together. The result was this exotic sawfish,” Captain Kaiser says while pointing to an impressive sculpture on the window sill. Since retiring, he has had time to devote himself fully to his artistic side.