With Million-Dollar Loss Onboard, Cargo Ship Carrying 4,000 Volkswagen Cars Continues To Burn At Sea

Cargo Ship That Carried 4 Thousand Volkswagen Cars Is Still Burning at Sea, However, There Is No Risk of Pollution or Shipwreck.

The Felicity Ace, a cargo ship, is still burning near Faial Island in the Azores archipelago, Portugal. The ship is registered under the Panamanian flag and its cargo consists of 4 thousand cars from the Volkswagen Group. Among the burned cars are models such as ID.3 and ID.4, although the former is strange considering its destination, which is Davisville, Rhode Island.

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More Than 1,000 Porsche and Lamborghini Cars Were Also on Board the Ship

In addition to popular Volkswagen models, the cargo ship also carried premium models from the brand, totaling 1,100 Porsche cars, as well as 189 cars from Bentley and 21 units from Lamborghini. With a million-dollar loss at sea, local authorities are seeking a way to remove the cargo of Volkswagen and other brand cars that are burning near the Portuguese island.

The cargo ship departed from Germany, specifically from Emden, where the brand has car factories, with a final destination to the United States. The cargo ship, when it was near the Azores in Portugal, just about to begin the crossing of the North Atlantic, noticed the start of the fire, which spread rapidly.

The incident started on Wednesday, and the cargo ship is still burning with Volkswagen cars, adrift. The crew consisted of 22 people, all of whom have been rescued by the Portuguese Navy.

Fire Does Not Present Pollution Risks in Portuguese Waters, Expert Highlights

The vessel was sailing 170km off the coast of Faial Island and remains there. So far, authorities in the country report that there are no signs that the cargo ship with Volkswagen cars will sink nor any signs of sea pollution.

The recovery of the vessel will be simpler, as will the assessment of the damage to the cargo ship and what it carries. Unfortunately, incidents like this involving fires, extreme freezing, and shipwrecks of cargo ships like this are rare, and for every cargo lost, about 4 thousand cars are lost, considering that this is the average for Ro Ro ships, common in ports worldwide. Here in Brazil, the port complexes of Vitória and Santos are the ones that most operate ships of this type.

Trinity Spirit Ship Explodes with 10 Crew Members

In early February, an oil tanker exploded near Nigeria, where 10 crew members were on board. The cause of the explosion has not yet been discovered, and investigations are ongoing.

“At this moment, there are no reported deaths, but we can confirm that there were 10 crew members on board the vessel before the incident, and we are prioritizing investigations regarding their safety,” said Ikemefuna Okafor, Executive Director of the Nigerian company Shebah Exploration & Production Company Ltd (SEPCOL), in a statement made to Reuters.

“It is estimated that the oil tanker burned its last gas at the end of July 2021,” said TankerTrackers. “This suggests that the Trinity Spirit has not produced anything since that date, considering that gas flaring during crude oil production is widespread in the region,” noted TankerTrackers.