Shipwreck Monday-SS Norge

 

 

 

SS Norge was a Danish passenger liner sailing from Copenhagen, Oslo and Kristiansand to New York, mainly with emigrants.  She sank off Rockall in 1904.

 

The SS Norge was the biggest civilian maritime disaster in the Atlantic Ocean until the sinking of the RMS Titanic eight years later.

 

SS Norge was built in 1881 by Alex Stephen & Sons Ltd of Linthouse, Glasgow, for the Belgian company Theodore C. Engels & Co of Antwerp.  Her original name was Pieter de Coninck. The ship was 3,359 GRT and 3,700 metric tons deadweight (DWT), and the 1,400-horsepower (1.0 MW) engine gave a speed of 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph). She could carry a maximum of 800 passengers.

 

In 1889 she was sold to A/S Dampskibs-selskabet Thingvalla of Denmark (later to be the Skandinavien-Amerika Linien or Scandinavian-America Line) and renamed Norge.

 

On 28 June 1904 Norge ran aground on Hasselwood Rock, close to Rockall, on St Helen's Reef. According to Sebak's comprehensive account, the final death toll was 635, among them 225 Norwegians. The 160 survivors spent up to eight days in open lifeboats before rescue.

 

Among the survivors was the poet Herman Wildenvey.

 

The wreck of Norge was located off Rockall in July 2003.