Standing six foot six, he is in charge of (nearly) everything on board: Tobias Kammann is the First Officer on the Essen Express and the first seafarer in his family.
It is a Sunday morning in July, shortly after eight in the morning, and the containership Essen Express is anchored in the roadstead off the English coast. The morning sun bathes the bridge in a soft light. When his cell phone rings, Tobias Kammann has just handed over his duties to the Second Officer after a four-hour watch. His daughter Janne, four years old, is on the line and tells him what she’s been doing at home and that she ate ice cream with her grandmother. At this moment, her father seems so close. But over the next 70 days, he will be traveling very far indeed – through the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal, all the way to Korea and back again.
Becoming a seafarer, or to be more precise: a Master, goes back to a suggestion made by a career advisor in his hometown when Kammann was 14 years old. As a child, he read dozens of novels about seafarers and collected stamps featuring ships. Today, the officer grins as he thinks back to the story with the questionnaire about career choices. Standing tall at six foot six, he is the first seafarer in his family.
As first officer, and on one of the largest ships in the Hapag-Lloyd fleet at that, the 35-year-old has come very far. The Essen Express, 366 meters long, has been “his” ship on quite a few tours. His list of tasks is lengthy: as Chief Mate he is accountable for the 6,320 containers currently on board, particularly the 233 reefers – and in charge of the trim and stability of the ship, ballast water, apprentices, deck maintenance and a lot of administrative work. He is also responsible for safety, health and, not least, garbage collection on board. Kammann is also required to keep watch at sea, eight hours every day. As a result, he works very long hours. “What bothers me most is the growing amount of paperwork. It just increases the likelihood of making mistakes, forgetting something or missing a deadline. And that creates unnecessary problems.” As he speaks, his usually friendly face takes on a serious expression.
One thing this seafarer has learned in 13 years at sea is how to solve problems efficiently and very calmly. He is still fascinated by the versatility of his job on board, and his sense of humor allows him to tackle the challenges it brings: “Where else would one be expected to suture a laceration at the drop of a hat?” Another fascinating aspect of his job are the encounters with nature, the infinite star-studded skies at night on the open seas, but also the vagaries of nature.
His first internship after graduating from school and completing his alternative civilian service gave him a chance to become acquainted with the less attractive aspects of seafaring. He sailed the North and the Baltic seas in winter on a 100-meter feeder with a seven-man crew. And although the sea spray froze on deck and they spent over a week trapped in the ice, looking back Kammann says, “I really enjoyed it.”
It was on this small vessel that the native North German later completed his training as a ship’s mechanic. “I was given a lot of responsibility at a very young age.” It was in 2005 on the Santiago Express with Hapag-Lloyd that Kammann first sailed beyond the ports in northern Europe and saw the world. And now he sails from Europe to Asia and back again, while his wife, who works for the management of a homeless shelter, holds the fort at home.
When his daughter was born, the ship’s management enabled Tobias Kammann to take an extended period of parental leave. His little daughter Janne has never known a time when her daddy wasn’t far away for weeks at a time. When she took her first steps, he was on board and only saw the photos. But once he gets back to shore, he devotes all of his time to his family – for weeks at a time.
