SS Norge

SS Norge
Career
Name:	SS Pieter de Coninck
Owner:	Theodore C. Engels & Co
Port of registry:	Belgium
Builder:	Alex Stephen & Sons Ltd of Linthouse, Glasgow
Launched:	1881
Career
Name:	SS Norge
Owner:	A/S Dampskibs-selskabet Thingvalla
Port of registry:	Denmark
Acquired:	1889
Fate:	Ran aground and sank on June 28, 1904
General characteristics
Tonnage:	3,359 Gross Register Tons
Installed power:	1,400 hp (1,000 kW)
Speed:	10 kn (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Capacity:	800 passengers

SS Norge was a Danish passenger liner sailing from Copenhagen, Oslo and Kristiansand to New York, mainly with emigrants, which sank off Rockall in 1904 in the biggest civilian maritime disaster in the Atlantic Ocean up to that time.

She 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 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. [1]

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

See also

• List of United Kingdom disasters by death toll

References

• Per Kristian Sebak - Titanic's Predecessor: The S/S Norge Disaster of 1904 (2004) ISBN 82-996779-0-4

External links

• Extensive site covering the catastrophe, in Norwegian
• The Orcadian - "Four years’ research unearths SS Norge’s final resting place"
• Journal of American Ethnic History
• SS Norge passenger list