STORIES
How Not Using Navigator Port Almost Got Me Arrested
On his first voyage as Captain, Helge Hals learned two things: Let Navigator Port handle your data checks — and never underestimate Dutch humor at customs. Port clearance can be wildly unpredictable.
What Helge learned during his first voyage as a captain
18 years ago, I took my first contract as a Captain on a paper carrier, transporting newsprint from east-coast Sweden to Chatham (UK) and Terneuzen (NL).
Navigator Port was installed onboard, but Captains still used Excel to send data to agents. I had looked into Navigator Port, but not well enough to use it for clearance.
Normally, I double-check all documents, but with limited port time and urgent demand from the Terneuzen agent, I sent them without reviewing.
Just a couple of hours before departing Terneuzen, customs came onboard to check the bonded stores.
They found that I had declared 200 boxes more (= 20,000 cigarettes) than I actually had onboard. So naturally, they suspected I’d sold them in Terneuzen.
I showed them the Excel sheet where one cell had been accidentally overwritten with this number, and luckily (thanks to my honest face 😌), they believed me. Still, it was an exciting two hours filled with a lot of phone calls to their superiors.
This was in November 2007, and a huge storm was rolling in from the west. For the first time since 1976, the Dutch flood barriers were about to close. We barely made it out of the lock in time. With only 20% of our cargo capacity filled (just waste paper), we knew this crossing was going to be a rough one.
As we were leaving, one of the customs officers laughed and said, “If you’d rather stay in port, we’ve got more than enough to arrest you for.”
And let me tell you: I double-checked every single file I sent to shore until I started working with Navigator Port😅.