Nakkebølle Fjord and Fjællebroen

If you look directly towards the west, when sailing along the coast of Fyn from Svendborg Strait north of Skarø, you can get a glimpse of the island of Svelmø, which is attached to Fyn only by way of a road that can only be driven on when the tide is low. But before rounding Svelmø, you will reach Nakkebølle Fjord, which is the entrance to Fjællebroen Harbour (55° 03,547´N 010° 03,547´E). This area is absolutely worth a visit. The fairway leading to the harbour is quite narrow, but buoyed well. From the first red buoy at the entrance to the fjord, there is approximately one nautical mile to the harbour, which is 2.5 metres deep.

In earlier times, the fjord went more than two kilometres inland towards the northwest from Fjællebroen – all the way to Nakkebølle Gods (Nakkebølle Manor), which is located by the highway between Faaborg and Svendborg. When the manor house was built back in the mid-16th century, it was reachable by boat. In the 300 years that followed, the innermost parts of the fjord became more and more choked, thus decreasing the depth of the water. It was therefore quite tempting for the tenant at the time to set up a dam in the right place, which he did in the years between 1866 and 1870. In the late 1980s, it was decided to abandon the reclamation process, and once again let the reclaimed land be filled with water – as was done in several similar places in Denmark – thus restoring the area to its original natural beauty.

During the approach, it is worth observing the large white buildings located opposite the harbour in the western part of the fjord. They were originally erected in 1908 by the “National Association for the Fight Against Tuberculosis”, however, the complex no longer serves as a sanatorium

Originally, Fjællebroen was an entrepot, but in the second half of the 19th century, the place had an actual shipyard, which was operated by a boat builder named Hoffmann. He mostly built merchant ships until he went out of business in the early 20th century. In the decades to follow, the shipbuilding itself stagnated, until 1940-1941, when a boat builder named Carl Banke pulled a barge into the fjord – loaded with everything needed to establish a small shipyard including an office. Today, this building has been reconstructed at the Smakkecenter (Smack Centre) on Strynø where it actually still serves as a shipyard.