His mother was Birgitte Sophie Maltesdatter née Sehested, who brought with her into the family at marriage the ownership of the estate of Ølufgaard, some nine kilometers south of Varde.

[8][Note 2] After five years as a cadet, Ulrich Kaas sailed with HDMS Nellebladet (Captain Ivar Hvitfeldt) in 1695, escorting a convoy to France, and continued on to the Mediterranean.

He reported in March of that year that, by Dutch regulations, he was not officially allowed to actively recruit, but the authorities would quietly turn a blind eye to volunteers being enlisted.

[2]Back in Denmark, Kaas was appointed captain of the ship-of-the-line Prins Carl shortly before that ship saw action in the Battle of Køge Bay.

[7] For the remainder of 1715, and for 1716, Ulrich Kaas commanded a squadron from the flagship Wenden tasked with maintaining the winter blockade of the Swedes in Stralsund and keeping the Baltic Sea free of the enemy, but in the spring of 1716, in fog, he was suddenly faced with an overwhelming Swedish force under Vice-Admiral Wüster.

He withdrew his squadron to the safety of Øresund, exhibiting great professionalism in navigating the treacherous waters off Falsterbo until the Swedish fleet retired from the scene.

In January 1724, during a recruiting exercise in the north of Jutland, Kaas' lodgings in the customs house in Skagen were struck by lightning and caught fire.

[7] About March 1729, just six months after the major fire, the architect Johan Cornelius Krieger established a brick works and also, in partnership with Kaas, a lime kiln and a sawmill in the Christianshavn district of Copenhagen[10] Early in 1732 a power struggle within the Danish admiralty came to a head.