Marsden, Souter Point, Inger

Iron, 750-tons, 55m long, 8.5m beam, Danish-registered steamship. She was owned at the time of loss by Messrs N.K. Stroyberg of Aalborg of Denmark and built in Sunderland as the Ben Lomond, in 1871, for a North Shields company. Her single iron propeller was powered by a two-cylinder, compound-steam engine that used one boiler.
At 7pm on 4 January 1906 the Inger was in ballast on passage from Aalborg for Sunderland, under the command of Captain E.S. Thorkelin, when she ran aground during thick fog, heavy seas and a massive ground swell. The Whitburn Volunteer Life Brigade rushed to the scene, but the vessel was too far odd shore to render assistance. However, the Sunderland lifeboat William Charles had been called and managed to get alongside the stricken vessel to rescue the one passenger and crew of eighteen Danish seamen. All attempts to refloat her were made impossible when the engine room flooded through the badly-holed hull plates and it wasn’t long before she began to break up, eventually to become a total wreck. It is believed that the vessel was partly salvaged, but the rest was left to the elements.

The wreck lies on a hard, weed-covered seabed of rocks and boulders, in a general depth of 5m. Very little of the vessel remains now, except for some twisted iron plates, keel and rib sections and her iron propeller. However, some five years ago, a porthole and some short lengths of copper-piping were recovered. The wreck, however, is now gradually concreting into the seabed. Grid reference conversion made 09.02.2011 with http://gps.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/etrs89geo_natgrid.asp with Lat/Long referenced as N 54 57 16 W 01 20 48