Dannebroge (Dannebrog, 1772)

Type

Ship of the Line

Period

18th Century

Nation

Denmark

Overview: Dannebroge was a 60-gun Danish ship of the line of the Holsteen class, built at the Nyholm naval dockyard in Copenhagen to a design by Frederik Michael Krabbe, alongside sister ships Holsteen and Wagrien. She is best remembered as the flagship of Commodore Olfert Fischer during the Battle of Copenhagen on 2 April 1801, where she was destroyed by Nelson's fleet. Specifications: Begun in 1770, launched in 1772, and commissioned in 1774, the ship measured roughly 48 metres (158 ft) in length with a beam of about 13.3 metres (42.5 ft). At commissioning she was rated for 60 guns and a crew of 559; by 1801, reduced and re-rigged as a blockship, her armament had been modified and partly removed, and she carried about 357 men into battle. Service History: After entering active service in 1774, Dannebroge was later withdrawn from front-line sailing duty and converted into a blockship — an older warship anchored as a floating gun battery. In 1801 she was placed in the Danish-Norwegian defensive line in Copenhagen harbour against the British fleet under Horatio Nelson, serving as Olfert Fischer's flagship from 27 March 1801. During the battle she was hit repeatedly, caught fire, drifted north, and exploded shortly after 4pm, sinking in the King's Deep only about six hours after the first shots were fired. Notable Facts: In late 2025 and into 2026, archaeologists from Denmark's Viking Ship Museum, working ahead of the Lynetteholm artificial-island project, excavated a large wooden shipwreck roughly 15 metres deep in Copenhagen harbour and identified it as Dannebroge. The dimensions of the timbers correspond exactly to the drawings of the ship that survive, and the dendrochronological dating matches the vessel's year of construction in 1772. Surrounding cannons, cannonballs, uniform fragments, and personal effects corroborated the identification, giving modelers a rare physical cross-check on hull dimensions for this class of Danish 18th-century ship of the line, more than two centuries after her loss.