Klaus Baess

Klaus Baess was born in November 1924 and grew up in Skovshoved, just North of Hellerup (and Copenhagen) where he lives today with his wife Else. They have 3 daughters.

He started to sail with the KDY Juniorbåd 15m2 that his father bought second hand for him and his brother (Jørgen who owns the GD28 Njord in Canada). During the war K. Baess was an active sailor and sailed almost every day of the week. However for obvious reasons, the Germans didn't allow very much sailing in the Sound (neutral Sweden was after all not that far away). Click here to read more about that period of time.

He got the 1948 Olympic bronze medal in the Dragon class with the Berntsen brothers from the Hellerup Sejlklub (also home to Elvstrøm and Birch who are some of the other sailing icons in Denmark). The Olympics gave him many Canadian connections and he then started an export business of second-hand boats to North America including the extended Nordic Folkboat sold in Florida under the name Great Dane and the Sisu - both GD28's parents. Visit this page to learn more about Baess export business.

Klaus Baess was also involved in the design, construction or marketing of other boats such as the Folkboat, Laurinkoster 32, Apollo 32 (also marketed in the UK through Carl Ziegler Yacht Agency),Great Dane 35, Great Dane 37, Jupiter and Husky Dane (the Appolo and last 2 ones are powerboats). An excellent article of the story of Nordic Folkboat written by Klaus Kramer (in German) can be seen here, it appeared in a shorter english version in the american mag Wooden Boat Magazine.

Klauss Baess (KB) was helped by Aage Utzon who mostly designed the Great Dane 28's hull while he looked after all the deck and interior fitting. Here comes some additional information about the boatbuilder called Brandt- Møller on the first photo on the previous page. His first name is Oscar and his surname Brandt- Møller with a hyphen. In 1946 he started boatbuilding in Jægerspris at the Roskilde Fjord. His yard soon became famous for its high quality Nordic Folkboats and one-offs. Today it's run by his son and grandson.

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approx. 1955 - K. Baess's mother, his wife Else and a boat builder called Aage Birch inspecting a dragon in Humlebaek, a small fishing village on the Sound, made for Jørgen (KB's brother) in Canada (Aage Birch was many times Dragon boat champion and one of Ole's childhood heroes)

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Discussing GD28 production with Sandersen, Refshaleøen approx. 1967. Great Dane 28's hull were built by Sandersens Plasticboats. KB owned and directed the Roskilde Shipyard.

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KB's first boatshow in KB hallen (sport, exhibition and concert hall in Copenhagen) approx. 1971. As one can see he didn't sell anything!

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Model of GD28 (KB doesn't know where it is now - has not given it to anyone but it's unfortunately not in his house…). View pages from KB's scrapebook containing papers articles by clicking here

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On the left is K. Baess today with another GD28 model made by his shipyard in the 70's (Thanks to Ole from Brise II).

Here is what Ole wrote after their meeting:

Before going there I had copied our website to my laptop and showed it to him and Else. I think it's fair to say that they're deeply impressed of how nice people have kept the GDs. And also impressed that so many people still enjoy one of his babies. He told me to say HELLO to all of you.- Feb. 2008

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The photo was taken during Klaus Baess visit to the international GD28 meeting 2009 in Copenhagen

Mr Klaus Baess is now 86 years, luckily in good health and enjoying the daily life!

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