Meet a Port Captain

Captain on shore

Article from NORDEN News 

When NORDEN’s vessels call at Koh Si Chang Anchorage in Thailand, Taipei in Taiwan or Banjarmassin in Indonesia, Captain Morten Kjell Larsen will often be there to meet them.

Morten Kjell Larsen is Port Captain for NORDEN in Southeast Asia, and it is his job to make sure that the port stays are as short and effi cient as possible and that the co-operation with the authorities and the port is smooth.

The Face of the Customer

“Employing vessels chartered by NORDEN and with no Danish crew on board, it is often a very good idea to be present in person at the port as a representative for the charterer and an ambassador for the customer. This can give the vessel crew and port staff an exact picture of what we expect and when. They are presented with a face of the assignment giver, a person with whom they can negotiate directly or to whom they have to explain themselves should any problems arise”, Morten Kjell Larsen says.

Enormous Amounts at Stake

Often, the most trivial things can turn out to be almost insurmountable obstacles, and lack of documents, power failure, defective loading and discharging equipment, wrong port bookings, lack of information, and cultural differences may all result in expensive days. The amounts at stake are enormous – one ship day can be translated into between USD 10,000 and USD 60,000, depending on the vessel type.

The code word of Morten Kjell Larsen’s work is therefore optimization of all procedures, from the time the ship calls at the port until it departs again: Discharging, cleaning, loading, contact with the authorities, paper fl ow, etc. For instance, a lot of time and money can be saved by hiring extra personnel to start cleaning the holds one by one as soon as they are empty instead of waiting until the entire cargo has been discharged. In connection with a contract concerning coal to Thailand, 2 port ship days were saved each month, corresponding to a yearly cost reduction of more than DKK 1 million.

Close Team-Work

By now, Morten Kjell Larsen is a familiar face in many of the ports, and empathy – good knowledge of the local conditions, mutual respect, and good relations are very important factors. “We make a big effort to establish a close teamwork with the locals and it is very important being able to communicate with everybody and motivate people. People are more willing to “go the extra mile” for somebody they know and feel obligated to”, says Morten Kjell Larsen.

Global Responsibility

Morten Kjell Larsen’s permanent base is in Thailand, and in the first half-year 2005, isolated, he had more than 130 travelling days to ports in Southeast Asia. The number of travelling days are not going to be less in the future as he has been left in charge of the global, daily operational responsibility for all NORDEN’s land-based grabs in the ports. Morten Kjell Larsen has been a Port Captain with NORDEN for 3 years and has previously been working for – among others – Lauritzen, Norsk Hydro, and CatLink, and been an of-ficer on the training ship “Georg Stage” and Port Captain on the Ivory Coast.