Today in portray: Captain Leonardus Versteeg. He has quite a gift for languages. As a Native of the Netherlands, he speaks Dutch. At home, he speaks Spanish with his wife. And at Hapag-Lloyd, it’s English and German.
Versteeg inherited the seaman’s gene from his father, who worked for many years at sea as a chief mate. “At five years old, I already knew I wanted to become a captain someday,” Versteeg recalls. While growing up in the Dutch town of Heemstede, just a few kilometers from Amsterdam and the North Sea Canal, he spent most of his school holidays at sea. By 16, he was already at the helm of smaller coastal vessels. At 34, he made his debut journey as a captain on board a 1,000 TEU ship.
Before joining Hapag-Lloyd in 2006, Versteeg worked for a Dutch shipping company transporting entire oil drilling platforms that weighed 30,000 metric tons and were sometimes even bigger than the ship he was navigating. Of course, at least when viewed in isolation, containers seem tiny in comparison. But on the bridge of his ship, the Dalian-Express, one can sense not only his concentration, but also the enthusiasm he has for his job.
Versteeg doesn’t make it back to his home country, the Netherlands, that often anymore because he and his family are now living in Malaga, on the southern coast of Spain. But whenever he does make it back, he likes to take advantage of the opportunity to visit old friends from navigation school or relatives. Doing so was particularly easy when he was still on a ship operating in Loop 6 of the G6 Alliance between Asia and Europe, which included a call at Antwerp.
These days, however, he sails in the Asia Suez Express (AZX) service between Asia and North America. Having departed from Halifax, in Canada, he will soon be calling at the Port of Cagliari, Sardinia’s largest city. After that, he will continue on to Damietta, in Egypt, to Jebel Ali in Dubai, to Singapore and to Laem Chabang, in Thailand. And then?
“Then my focus is on my family,” he says. Versteeg always enjoys the time he spends at home with his wife, a lawyer born in Chile, and their two children. “At home, I always get a long list of things that need to be done on the house,” he says. Versteeg’s other passion is rock music. His favorite bands include the English boogie rock band Status Quo and the Spanish metal bands Warcry and Saratoga, and he likes to go to “Leyendas del Rock,” a heavy metal music festival held each year in eastern Spain.
Leonardus Versteeg also adds that his family has gotten used to the fact that he spends half the year at sea. His 14-year-old son wants to follow in the footsteps of his father and grandfather by going to sea, but his 16-year-old daughter isn’t so sure about what she wants to do. Leonardus Versteeg, however starts missing life on board a ship already after a few weeks. “For me, going out to sea means freedom,” he says.
