Danish Shipping Companies (S)

Last modified: 2025-06-20 by klaus-michael schneider
Keywords: denmark |
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• Scandlines
• ScanDutch I/S
• Schach Steenberg & Co.
• L.R. Schmith & Co.
• Skou International A/S (Ove Skou)
• Partrederiet Slotssøen Hillerød
• Adolf Ejler Sørensen
• Det Store Nordiske Telegraf-Selskab A/S
• Sundbusserne
• H. Svarrer & Co.
• Svendborg Bugser A/S
• Svendsen & Christensen
• Oluf Svendsen Rederiet
• Svenson & Jesperson
• A/S Em. Z. Svitzer´s Bjergnings-Entreprise
• Sydfynske Dampskibsselskab A/S (SFDS A/S)

• Denmark
• Joseph Nüsse website
• House flags of shipping companies

Scandlines

Scandlines operates ferries in the south Baltic sea; I don´t know if it is based in only one country, or in all three (or even more) countries of Sweden, Germany, Denmark. The biggest ferry seems to be from Putgarten, on Fehmarn in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, to Rødby, on Lolland island in Denmark (and back of course), taking about 50 minutes. Also the ferry from Helsingør in Denmark to Helsingborg in Sweden is run by Scandlines. More information can be found on the (company homepage) where I also got the logo. The flag is a white field with the company logo in the centre.
Jarig Bakker, 3 Aug 2003

ScanDutch I/S

The company is based in København. White flag with a red three-bladed propeller in the middle.
Source: Joseph Nüsse website
Ivan Sache, 16 Nov 2002

Schach Steenberg & Co.

The company was based in København. A white flag with three blue wavy bars.
Source: Brown´s Flags and Funnels (Wedge 1926)
Jarig Bakker, 19 Dec 2004

L.R. Schmith & Co.

The company is based in København. The flag was red with centred thin Greek cross
Source: US Navy 1961, p.3-18/row 3/column 3
Klaus-Michael Schneider, 30 May 2025

Skou International A/S (Ove Skou)

The company was based in København. The flag was blue with white "S".
Sources: Loughran (1995) and US Navy 1961, p.3-19/row 3/column 2
Jarig Bakker, 21 Oct 2005

If the Skou companies were indeed the exact same, which it might be a diligent researcher could extract from this website, at least Rederiet Ove Skou would appear to be the original name, and as such it would be worth preserving, IMO, even if the entries were to be merged. But I really wonder whether all those Skou companies could all have had their own specific flags.
Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 19 June 2013

Partrederiet Slotssøen Hillerød

The company operates a little water bus cruising the lake behind [Frederiksborg] Castle, one of North Zealand´s most famous castles, home of the Carlsberg Foundation and of a replica of the very first Dannebrog.
The pennant is horizontally parted of green and blue, shifted to hoist is a white initial serifed "S".
Source: I spotted this pennant at one of its stops on 6 June 2016.
Klaus-Michael Schneider, 25 Feb 2021

The waterbusses seem to serve no other purpose than to show the castle from the other side.
Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 28 Feb 2021

Hillerød is one of North Zealand´s "villages in wood", together with Lillerød and Birkerød, all established by forest clearance in the Medieval. Hillerød is located some 30 km north of København and was seat of Frederiksborg Amt.
Klaus-Michael Schneider, 25 February 2021

The amter have been replaced by regions in 2007. Hillerød is now the administrative centre of the Capital Region, see this website. Different from what one might expect, Helsingør, Roskilde, nor København are the capital of region, maybe exactly because each of them could have a claim to such a title.
Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 28 Feb 2021

Adolf Ejler Sørensen

The company was based in Svendborg. The houseflag is a red-white-red horizontally divided swallowtail pennant. The white stripe is broader and has a blue inscription "AES".
Source. based on Stewart and Styring´s Flags, Funnels and Hull Colours, 1963, image 825
Phil Nelson, 24 June 2000

Det Store Nordiske Telegraf-Selskab A/S

image by Jarig Bakker, 20 Jan 2005

image by Klaus-Michael Schneider, 29 May 2025

The company was founded in 1869 and based in København and also known as The Great Northern Telegraph [or Telephone] Co. Ltd. The flag was red flag with a centred white Maltese cross (see left image above) and with broader cross, quasi a red version of DFDS (see right image above).

Sources: Brown´s Flags and Funnels (Wedge 1926) and US Navy 1961, p.3-15/row 2/column 1
Jarig Bakker, 20 Jan 2005 and Klaus-Michael Schneider, 29 May 2025

Store Nordiske Telegrafselskab was quite a successful company in its day. In periods, it took care of parts of the Danish foreign policy towards Russia. The company has changed quite a lot since. The core of the company is now GN Great Nordic (at http://www.gn.dk , but the cable and telegraph activities are in GN Great Northern Telegraph Company.
Ole Andersen, 20 June 2001

A different flag is shown at Store Nordiske Telegraf-Selskab as shown in Flaggenbuch (1939), p.42
Željko Heimer, 2 June 2004

Sundbusserne

image by Klaus-Michael Schneider, 25 February 2021

Sundbusserne is a shipping line which only carries pedestrian passengers on the HH Ferry route between Elsinore (Danish: Helsingør), at north-east Zealand, Denmark and Helsingborg, Scania, Sweden. Sundbusserne means "The Sound Busses", which is a bit exaggerated according to the fact that they run just one vessel.
The new flag is white, blue "S" in centre and red disc in lower hoist and upper fly. The discs are representing Helsingør (hoist) and Helsingborg (fly), the "S" is representing the Øresund between the two cities.
Source: I spotted this flag on 10 June 2016 in Helsingør Harbour.
Klaus-Michael Schneider, 25 Feb 2021

And other destinations on the Sound if there is interest. Basically, they are the small passenger boats that fill in the gaps left by the big ferries. The HH is their main-line, though.
Since 2010 they depart every hour from Helsingør.
They started under Norwegian flag in 1958, and during the time between the 1960s and the first decade of the second millennium they departured every 15th or 20th minute from each harbour. Owner until 2007 was A/S Moltzau.
In 2007 the shipping line was sold and renamed to "ACE-link". After a failed investment in two little larger ships they went into bankruptcy. But soon afterwards the line was restarted again with one of their older ships, M/F PERNILLE.
see also: https://www.crwflags.com/fotw/FLAGS/se~hf15.html#Sund
Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 28 Feb 2021

H. Svarrer & Co.

The company was based in København. The flag was a horizontal 5-stripes flag with stripes alternating of blue and white.
Source: Flaggenbuch 1905, part V, group 3, image 318
Klaus-Michael Schneider, 27 May 2025

Svendborg Bugser A/S

Svendborg, a port in the South of Fyn, Denmark, is home to Svendborg Bugser A/S (i.e. Svendborg Towing Co. Ltd). Website, English (url followed by quote from Introduction):
"Svendborg Bugser A/S is an independent family owned company, presently operating (...) a diverse fleet of tugs and pontoons of varying operational capacity (...) offer[ing] expert service on a diverse range of projects, including towages, salvage, cable laying, offshore wind turbine construction, barge-transportation, heavy-lifts (ship sections, superstructures, constructions etc.), supply-services and crewing. Historically, the majority of our operations were based in vicinity of the Baltic & North Seas, but we are now increasingly more active in other areas, such as the Mediterranean, Africa, Transatlantic and the Black Sea."
Source: company website
This page also leads to a 2005 article offering more information: coastal ship operator Niels Henriksen sold his four ships in 1977 to branch into towing, typically acquiring able and, as business developed materially and geopgraphically, larger tugs from other companies. Currently, son and co-partner Niels Ove Henriksen owns Rederiet Junior ApS, operating smaller tugs, and with his father owns Baltic Towing Co.
See the "Fleet List" (upper menu) for the usual details but also "News" giving lots of photos showing Svenborg active in towing ships and loads of all kinds, some of them spectacular.
The house flag is white bearing the founder´s initials "NH" in red (no serifs) and apparently joined (vide website), the image reminding us that the house flag repeats the national colours.
Source: photo evidence
Jan Mertens, 8 May 2011

The company was rebranded to NH Towage on 14 January 2020.
Klaus-Michael Schneider, 12 June 2025

Svendsen & Christensen, Copenhagen

image by Jarig Bakker, 19 Dec 2004

A blue swallowtail pennant with white shield with red saltire cross shifted to hoist.
Source: Brown´s Flags and Funnels (Wedge 1926)
Jarig Bakker, 19 Dec 2004

Long pennant

Dated from 1898 with Lloyds 1904 showing a narrow swallow-tailed long pennant and the normal swallow-tailed version by 1912. At some stage prior to WW2 [my earliest mention is for 1939] they began trading through A/S D/S Vendila and post WW2 this is [basically as they vary the title] the name listed in Lloyds with the flag being shown also under this name by Brown 1958 and Stewart 1963. By 1963 the fleet was no longer and Vendila was acquired by Dannebrog Rederie A/S and presumably traded in their colours until being merged into the associate Weco-Shipping I/S in 1972.
Source: Stewart and Styring´s Flags, Funnels and Hull Colours, 1963, image 829
Neale Rosanoski, 29 Jan 2005

Oluf Svendsen Rederiet

The company is based in København. The flag wasyellow with red initial "S" in a centred red annulet.
Source: US Navy 1961, p.3-16/row 3/column 2
Klaus-Michael Schneider, 30 May 2025

Svenson & Jesperson

The company was based in København. The flag was red divided per white bend sinister and at hoist top and fly bottom white a 5-pointed star.
Source: Brown´s Flags and Funnels (Wedge 1926)
Jarig Bakker, 20 Jan 2005

A/S EM. Z. Svitzer´s Bjergnings-Entreprise

The flag is white with a blue cross formy (as per the website for a shot of the actual).
Neale Rosanoski, 11 Sep 2001

The company is based in Brøndby a Southwestern suburb of København. It is the Scandinavian branch of the Svitzer-Wijsmuller group, founded in August 2001 by the merging of Svitzer (Denmark) and Wijsmuller Bros (Baarn, The Netherlands). The group is itself part of the A.P. Møller (Maersk) group. It operates today the most powerful tug fleet in the world. Svitzer was founded in 1833 and owns today the towage and salvage companies Roda Bolaget (Sweden) and Esvagt A/S (Denmark). Wijsmuller was founded in 1906 as Wijsmuller Bureau.
Sources: company website and
Source: Loughran (1995)
Ivan Sache, 27 Nov 2003

Sydfynske Dampskibsselskab A/S, SFDS A/S

The company was based in Marstal. And the first sail from Marstal to Rudkøbing took place in 1866. It was the first ferry of Ærø powered by steam engine. Finally the company was incorporated into Marstalfærgen K/S in 1975.
The flag was red with a white trefoil with its leaves having black centres.
Sources: here and flag best seen here
Klaus-Michael Schneider, 26 May 2025