Watersports in Copenhagen

When I moved to Copenhagen I was hoping to do some windsurfing or SUP. I had a hard time finding information in english, so these are my findings. I’ll update the page as I find more, this is an ongoing quest.

Beaches

The main areas are

They’re both fairly ugly by mediterranean standards.

Amager Strandpark

According to the rules here you can windsurf, SUP, kayak and sail all year, staying outside the diving track (not sure where that is exactly). All types of surfing are allowed all year outside the summer bathing zone and in the lagoon, but surfers are allowed to briefly sail through the bathing zone on the way out. The summer bathing zone is marked by buoys.

Svanemøllestrand

During summer this is a crowded small beach. The marina pier at the south side has a restaurant and three sailing clubs: Sailing Club Sundet, Copenhagen Amateur Sailing Club and Sailing Club Frem. Getting information from these clubs is surprisingly difficult. The only email I found was Sundet’s, but never replied to my inquiries and I’ve never found anybody in the office.

Lakes

Windsurfing

Windsurfing is not as popular as it used to be. You can find some information, not much and in danish only, at DBO, the Danish Boardsailing Organization.

In Amager Strandpark there are two options:

In Valby there is the Sydhavnens Windsurfer Club. The club seems a good place for storage at a reasonable price. If you join you can use their gear, but it’s beginners only.

SUP

I’ve been told that if you don’t stay within 200m of the coast you need to wear a lifejacket.

According to Copenhagen Watersports from June 15th to October 31st you can use the SUP in some parts of Copenhagen’s harbour and you must wear a life jacket. The image below comes from their website:

SUP allowed area

More details should be found here but I couldn’t find anything useful.

A good option is Hellerup Sejlklub.

Kitesurfing

Kites seem to be more popular these days. The kite friendly beaches seem to be in the southern part of Amager. A kite center/school is Amager Kitescole. They were friendly and provided information.

Sailing

Your best bet is to go through one of the various sailing clubs. In most places the sailing season ends in October.

You can rent larger boats on Boatflex.

Joining these sailing clubs turned out being quite harder than I was expecting. You can sign up for a course at Sailing First to improve your chances, but it didn’t seem to work for me. KDY never bothered responding to my membership application, despite following the school’s recommendations and asking for feedback multiple times. I eventually gave up.

Shops

A nice shop in Østerbro is One Open Sky. They have a good selection of windsurf, SUP and kite gear. For sailing gear you can check Lynettens Bådservice (Lynetten area) or Marinetorvet (Amager area).

Online stores: