You decide whats on. Sunday morning at w dot smart. A container giant is on its way to its home port. More than thirteen thousand containers fit on how pad lloyds newest vessels theyre the pride and joy of this Long Established Company and its one hundred and seventeen year history. This hamburg based shipping line is seeking to catch up with the frontrunners and become a Global Player. But can its plans well count. The enormous cargo ship as an express is one of the companys largest vessels first. Officer told b s come and started his watch in rotterdam so hes been on board for just twelve hours but as the man in charge of the cargo he has to make sure the visit to the home port of hamburg is as quick as a pit stop. And see if you went in we have lots of containers for number where on loading roughly three thousand one hundred all that will be done in forty eight hours it will be a very busy period on board. To illustrate what that means the three thousand one hundred containers on trucks would form a queue around fifty kilometers long the first officers also the boss of the deck crew the hands all come from the philippines with the one. Ok a line was damaged in rotterdam but its needed for docking in hamburg what now you. Know no big deal we were just there. The other side would take me when i am booked and then there. We would take a load on the ocean there. They dont want any delays now together with the captain to be as has to make sure that the vessel arrives on the dot in hamburg. That Storage Space is expensive and our big clients expect us to deliver their cargo just in time where they need it im going and thats clients like ikea b. S. F. B w they want a just in time turnaround. They want to be able to unload the container and have it processed immediately that was the back then come on guys far better that are vital far but at the end cunt if the ships not on time the customers get angry they could even switch their shipping company. Captain peter plane took over the vessel in rotterdam everything was the farmer like then. Just before entering the narrow waters of the elbe he takes charge on the bridge until the ship reaches its moorings and the express isnt on or stronger from a good writer for the river elbe is like the eye of a needle for this huge ship. You can put in here in a match we are entering the obvious tricky because we have a draft of thirteen point eight meters which makes us dependent on the toilet as the door to it in which we have to enter on a high tide so we have enough water on the ship otherwise we wouldnt get through while hes on this mission of the. Company headquarters together with the chillin companys c. S. A. V the city of hamburg is one of happy lloyds biggest shareholders hamburg has invested one point one five billion euros of taxpayers money in the company but in recent years its made nothing but losses c. E. O. All of how many ansen joined the company in mid two thousand and fourteen hes the boss of ten thousand employees around the world two thousand of them in hamburg he wants to make the Long Established Company profitable again this is holds if its a very impressive you can feel the tradition and the strength has always had you also feel a certain pride when youre allowed to work for this Company Officials for days and to name the sort of. His test float in the company on the stock market. And i ultimately think my task is quite simple to try and improve business together with the employees we want to ensure that hartford will still be around in a hundred years time us up our whole digital he made us. Happy thats the acronym of the how am i can assure packet fat acts in biz a shaft founded in eight hundred forty seven one hundred years ago it was the Biggest Shipping Company in the world this man. Was the one who made it big he was the son of a jewish family that had moved from denmark to germany he grew up near the port of hamburg he saw all the people who were leaving germany for america in their thousands and his business idea was to transport them in large comfortable vessels. His imperial majesty the kaiser was present at the launch of the impulse art or as the Worlds Largest ship at the time was called at his behest. Balin was allowed to call himself a friend of the kaiser it was a dream come true for the entrepreneur he had beaten his competitors some braman. North german lloyd was also making money from the emigrants. Its ships were often faster but because of their construction the passengers became seasick more easily. Another idea helped have had success the emigrants were looked after and housed before the crossing even medical care was included. For a small additional fare the passengers no longer had to travel in mass accommodation in steerage they could have their own cabins children paid. Half price which made happy attractive to families crossing the atlantic became a relatively comfortable journey. One thing that hasnt changed since then is the significance of the company for hamburg loyd and its partners are responsible for around forty percent of contain a turnover in the port of hamburg a biased to me cause i was quite a big employer here in hamburg i think we stand for hamburg too we generate a lot of cargo for the port. Food a hassle or hopefully feeling of hopefully one day well be able to pay some money back to those who invested in us with. The unity or deficit of the out invader Container Terminal apprentice net and bush is getting ready for her first trip as a crew member on board a container vessel. Shell be on board for eleven weeks to china and back the s. And express has almost reached its moorings but the biggest obstacle still lies ahead. He could land bridge. But other. Than their own fire station here fast forward to god. At high tide the ship will scrape the bridge itll only fit when the water level has dropped again. Via moment and we currently have a height of fifty two meters and twenty five centimeters about that and a lot of oil and the two crossing heights is fifty three meters so we have at least seventy five centimeters in the old thora ts xpress safety margin so probably to meet and sides by means of answers and. Its an exciting moment isnt it sean it is i mean we did the calculation more times than we needed to but it would be most unfortunate if we rent the bridge or not. Because it will fit. But it still looks impressive. They said so whats its a movie but im not going. To bring it up. When it was inaugurated in one thousand nine hundred seventy four the bridge was a step into the future today its a traffic obstruction the latest generation of container vessels wont fit under it anymore. Newly anetta and bush who is training to become a ships mechanic has one trip under her belt already but that was on board a training vessel. Are you excited. Yes very much so. But. At the end of her first apprenticeship year shes on her own now she has to report to the first officer. The point that i was all going to go you know if i were you can stow her heavy bags at last then its time for the formalities she has to show her papers. Overcommit thats what im here. For you. This is. After that shell be shown to her cabin contacts that i was here i had severe medical or right thats come of what i said. Lord just see the d. Deck the deck for the lower ranks her new home. Today. Thats right. This will be your home for the next eleven weeks. Thats the stuff you do that get your bags and get changed and come up when youre ready to start all over to you all know wants and what not ok were not heres your piece. On this paper as im used to being on board a ship with hardly any women this wont be anything new i think well all find our place thats other such as being here. What you mean by that. Sometimes the attitude is we dont want women on board but as long as you can be straight with everyone and you get on it fine its not us thats. A. Good place. Shes now one of a crew of twenty six. Hamburg in the late thirtys its two Major Shipping Companies happy and lloyd had a new Majority Shareholder the third of. The shipping companies abate their new owner but the business of the previously International Companies stagnated there werent many foreign nationals willing to cross the atlantic in ships flying the swastika. The air but there was a lucrative nisha emigrants jewish citizens leaving germany on happy and lloyd ships refugees in search of a new home. On the thirteenth of may one thousand thirty nine six months after the night of broken glass the happy passenger vessel sent lewis departed hamburg with nine hundred and six jewish refugees on board it was headed for cuba. But when the ship arrived in havana the refugees werent allowed to disembark the reason they were told was because their visas were invalid and too many jewish immigrants had arrived in recent months. The ship was turned away in the United States too it was supposed to head back to germany but the german captain of all people found a different solution he negotiated with the belgians and the passengers were allowed to disembark in antwerp it saved the lives of many of his passengers. By the end of the war almost all of happiness and lloyds ships had been destroyed or seized as reparations payments kaput had one seagoing ship left the st louis the burnt out wreck was used as a hotel ship it spent three years mordor the out on a piece and. The columbus kaiya in brame a half and big passenger ships departed from here to america up until the one nine hundred sixty s. On board were immigrants the families of allied soldiers business travelers but then air travel took over the transatlantic route passenger ships were now used for cruises. Lloyds spare parts warehouse in the port of hamburg the majority of the companys vessels a serviced in hamburg theres a shelf for every vessel. As of these bans urination is one of the inspectors its his job to make sure the ships he oversees a technically in order so thats what he keeps the spare parts for but. Its more expensive to see where youre going out into the lot because i was anything good break from the main engine to the smallest motor he was know in advance you have small motors for the ignition burner for example if you havent got that you cant ignite the boiler of and its a small cause but a big effect its like a little motor like that costs maybe a hundred euros but its a big deal if you dont have one on board and. Bent a joint how big lloyd after germanys reunification before that he worked as first engineer on a factory fishing ship based in rostock the we knew about the company we thought highly of if we ordered something that didnt arrive we said what do you think we are lloyd inflation or this thing is i joined in one nine hundred ninety and now weve got everything offices. Today he wants to visit the essen express band knows this ship well he oversaw similar vessels during their construction. Its only a phone that i started with two hundred ninety four meters and four thousand two hundred containers these are the ships today are three hundred sixty six meters with thirteen thousand two hundred containers and if they have three times the capacity when the ship is fully laden a container on a ship that can transport sixteen thousand containers is much cheaper than on a ship that can carry four thousand because the overheads remain largely unchanged while youre transporting four times as much and that reduces the price per container and youre doing it. The essen express is a standard type that high on day bills off the shelf in korea pants job is like that of an inhouse Servicing Agency he has to check that the parts fitted by the shipyard a still working properly. So we have time problems too weve been here for two days everything has to be coordinated you can start working at twelve if you more that seven you have to stick to your schedule. Two days for a complete inspection thats how long it takes to load and unload a container vessel of this size. First officer tobias common is responsible for the loading plan he has to make sure the vessel remains balanced and that the Dangerous Goods containers remain easily accessible at sea. Is vice versa i know whats in the refrigerated containers and i know what Dangerous Goods and chemicals were dealing with in the states i dont know anything about irregular close contingency vices i cannot ask if i have a problem and for me im good other than that. Theyre just boxes a and b. That have to be loaded and unloaded on top to and. The crane driver needs one minute to unload two large containers in the past the same amount of cargo would have taken twenty workers an entire shift to be as common as working day is determined entirely by containers when saying if we didnt have containers the way we have them now and then the economy wouldnt run so fast we wouldnt be able to transport goods from a to b. So quickly or precisely you know warehouse time has been reduced products can be produced more quickly and different parts from all over the world can be assembled in yet another location feel a tie loss ill have unlimited onion and we owe all of that to continues on to sell us for the container the first officer is at the Container Terminal to check whether the out of gauge parts of the cargo thats too big for a container have been properly strapped its the only opportunity has to leave the ship for a brief moment. My most so you have to be ok with being on the board the whole time night in our case eleven at twelve weeks if youre lucky youll be able to leave the ship twice during that time for say five or six hours on dot com other than that its all about work all about the containers and driving the vessel the container on so far. In this case he gets fifteen minutes ashore or he sees of hamburg is a small section of the Container Terminal. Hes thirty four years old he spent the last thirteen at sea apart from some breaks to study. Theyve been fired that im married and i have a daughter whos almost fall and theyve grown into this whole shipping thing. Im missing and my daughter doesnt know anything out satan the saddest daddy goes to see me and comes back again. With the fountain of youth and its not always easy to leave but the return is older nicer as a result. Is that it will show you know that. Banty nations inspecting the vessel from the port authorities perspective if there were to be an unannounced inspection even the First Impression has to be a good one a switch on the crane is a bit stiff. As a symbolic this hydraulics are delicate but they stop working it gets expensive its best to do a proper inspection to avoid paying for expensive repairs down the line. When band started working for it in one nine hundred ninety the company had cut the crew size to sixteen to save money. Consequently necessary Maintenance Work didnt get done. But nobody wanted to hear any criticism. At the time it was a company with a reputation everyone who worked at top uglow and was proud of that you showed that you were proud to work there is a good site there were lots of employees who were a bit older and had worked for hop ugh lloyd for forty years and then i showed up as a young man and was supposed to tell them what to do they told me this wasnt the way it was going to work were the old guys youre a boy youre going to do what we tell you as an owner of us of. The crew is now twenty two thats just about enough. Telling them about if you stay on the ball you got no worries but if you fall behind its hard to catch up its a big ship and your crew small but if you give people instructions and you tell them what to do want to trip then you stay on the ball and it works quite well as does the proper timing of us. Hes going to inform the captain of the problems so that he has them fixed during the next trip. Ok there have been doj kristie thats he told me at war the inspection didnt find very much the essen express is only two years old ben only has a couple of minor issues to report. And the two met on a happy lloyd ship twenty five years ago theyve been friends ever since. It was paid as work here forty years ive been here for twenty five years weve both decided to continue on this vessel until it has to return to the shipyard in three years and then well enjoy our well earned retirement. Lets wait and see a lot of water will flow down the elbe the four then over the water. Since peter only boarded the ship in rotterdam he hasnt had time to stow his belongings away. Hell spend the next eleven weeks in the captains cabin then another eleven weeks in a house with a garden in hanover. And from the real i started on the bavaria in july nine hundred seventy three and was on board for seven months the more noted i was at the bottom of the pecking order you know the old boys called us Conveyor Belt boys because wed graduated from high school and got places relatively quickly its moot as she didnt start as cabin boy at first it was hard to be accepted by these people and hes an accepted. Now he is the boss hes come a long way from the days when he had long hair and was applying to be an officer. As have a guy i was dealing with the captain on the bridge and the captain refer to me in the third person via the first officer he was to take this course and he was to close the top button on his shirt or not was very funny at seeing him kind of food and it was very strange to me back in one nine hundred seventy three and the incident at the end sixty zero and before and. When captain pliant started his seafaring career happened in lloyd had just merged that was in one nine hundred seventy cargo ships were to be found on all the seven seas some of the goods were loaded using the ships own cranes. And a ship is in half and across the ship reached the harbor to face in them we need term and which gangways to set up and we had up to six gangways with eight to twelve people working on each one meaning we had sixty seventy people on board the supervision order then when the ship was loaded and unloaded through these hatches should be went and. Unlike today the crew back then knew what they were carrying germany exported machines Chemical Products and cars the ports in Central America and the far east exported raw materials. The smells we came back with were tobacco and spices rubber oils and latex it was quite impressive tex dust of a sean sean battle. In those days a ship had a crew of forty five compared to todays cruise that was more people for less cargo often heading in here for the times we had in