Author: Nicole de Jong

‘When is the next ship due?’ That is the question Captain Wolfgang Adler probably hears most often at the Willkomm-Höft, the Welcome Point that greets ships on the River Elbe in Wedel. He answers patiently – again and again, every day. And he is glad to do so. For guests of the Schulauer Fährhaus restaurant, which houses the Welcome Point, he also provides interesting facts about the vessel in question. Adler has spent the last 13 years greeting or seeing off every ship with a gross tonnage (GT) of 1,000 and above, each time accompanied by its national anthem and a message in their native tongue.

Adler’s ties to the tradition began in primary school, when he assisted the greeting captains. Back then, he was only allowed to dip the Hamburg flag – a brief lowering in salute. That moment left a lasting impression. He trained as a port forwarding agent, worked in the Port of Hamburg, and has stayed connected to shipping ever since – today as a volunteer greeting captain at the Welcome Point. Together with six fellow captains, he devotes five days a month to keeping this unique custom alive.

‘We continue the founder Otto Friedrich Behnke’s idea: to greet seafarers, and in doing so foster international understanding,’ says Adler. He and his colleagues can play the 154 national anthems of all seafaring nations – recordings made specially for the Welcome Point in the NDR Hamburg studios. Originally issued as vinyl singles with the welcome on the A-side and the farewell on the B-side, the anthems were later transferred to cassette tapes – red for greetings, black for farewells. Today, the original recordings are played digitally. In a single shift, the captains welcome and bid up to 25 ships farewell.

At the heart of the Welcome Point is a wooden desk holding some 17,000 index cards, neatly arranged with all the relevant data on each ship. Adler and his colleagues keep the files up to date and share details with visitors: ship’s name, flag, size, draught, shipping line, origin, route, cargo, and special characteristics. The information comes from a range of sources, such as the port information service or the operators themselves. ‘Sometimes it’s not at all easy to find out the details of a ship,’ the 76-year-old admits. But he’s not one to give up quickly. Once, he became so engrossed in research that he missed a vessel passing – it sailed by unacknowledged.

The Welcome Point is unique. ‘Our station is known among seafarers all over the world,’ says Adler. ‘They look forward to the greeting when their voyage brings them to Hamburg.’ One anecdote demonstrates the tradition’s reach: a visitor once told of meeting a former seaman in the Andes. The Peruvian instantly recalled the ships’ greeting on the Elbe – and spoke of it with great enthusiasm.

To ensure no ship is missed, the captains monitor the Elbe with two fixed cameras: one facing west, one east, so that they can spot both incoming and outgoing vessels before they come within sight of the Welcome Point itself.

And when is the next ship? A visitor asks whether it’s worth waiting a little longer on the terrace of the Schulauer Fährhaus. ‘Yes,’ Adler replies, ‘the Danish San Raphael Maersk is just about to depart – 333 metres long, with space for up to 11,503 containers.’ He glances at the screen in front of him. ‘And I can already see Kugelbake – she’ll be here in about twenty minutes.’ The RoRo vessel exclusively carries components for Airbus, from Nordenham to Hamburg. As she sails under the German flag, the German anthem will play. To track ships in real time, Adler uses the online application Vesselfinder, which shows vessel positions worldwide. The index cards with the ship’s technical data lie ready on the desk.

Adler shares the visitors’ enthusiasm – especially when it comes to children, who are particularly close to his heart. For them, he has prepared a treasure chest of small surprises, which never fails to light up young faces. Only recently, a grandmother visited with her grandson from California. ‘Even that boy had already heard about our treasure chest,’ Adler recalls with a smile. Such moments move him – as do the amusing ones everyday life at the Welcome Point brings. ‘We recently had a strong easterly wind and a falling tide,’ he remembers. ‘An elderly lady called out in alarm: “Captain Adler, the pontoon has been stolen!”’ Indeed, the water level was so low that it was almost invisible. A charming misunderstanding – and a welcome change from the most common question: ‘When is the next ship due?’

History of the ships’ greeting

Otto Friedrich Behnke, tenant of the Schulauer Fährhaus from 1949 to 1964, wanted to offer his guests more than good food and a view of the Elbe. Born out of business acumen, local pride and the desire to create something unique, the Willkomm-Höft (Welcome Point) ship greeting station in Wedel was born. On 12 June 1952, the first vessel received the honour of an official welcome: Akagi Maru from Japan. Her captain was so delighted that he visited the Welcome Point personally to give thanks. The greetings were recorded by NDR radio announcer Hermann Rockmann, whose distinctive voice can still be heard at the station today saying: ‘Welcome to Hamburg. We are pleased to welcome you to the Port of Hamburg.’ Only the Japanese and Chinese announcements were spoken by native speakers: a member of staff at the Japanese consulate and a kitchen hand from the Schulauer Fährhaus who spoke Mandarin. The Welcome Point is manned Monday to Friday from 12 noon until no later than 8 pm, and on weekends and public holidays the captains begin an hour earlier.