Fleet oaks refer to the oak trees that are planted for the soul purpose of using it to build a fleet of ships.

The fear of a shortage in suitable fleet oak in the 1500’s made the Danes accept a law that protected the oak forests from private tree cutting and timber export. At the same time, new oak tree were planted to be used for ship building in the years to come.

When Denmark-Norway lost the battle at Reden in 1807 and the British took the Danish maritime force, often described as The Fleet Theft, a royal decree was issued about planting a new oak forest. The timber would then be available in the future whenever the fleet needed new fleet oak to build a new navy / ships.

But with the technological development in the following 200 years, the fleet’s need for oak trees disappeared. At the end of the millennium, 90.000 oak trees stood ready to be cut down at the king’s order. However, today we do not used oak trees in the building of navy ships.