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A cargo ship carrying 4 cars from the Volkswagen group is still burning on the high seas, however there is still no risk of pollution or sinking.
The Felicity Ace, a cargo ship, is still burning off the island of Faial in the Azores archipelago, Portugal. The ship flies the flag of Panama and its cargo consists of 4 cars from the Volkswagen group. Among the cars that burned are models like ID.3 and ID.4, although this first one 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 the ship.
In addition to popular Volkswagen models, the cargo ship also carried premium models of the brand, a total of 1.100 examples of Porsche cars, as well as another 189 Bentley cars and 21 units of Lamborghini. With a millionaire loss on the high seas, authorities in the region are looking for a way to remove the cargo of Volkswagen cars and other brands that are being set on fire near the Portuguese island.
The cargo ship left Germany, more precisely Endem, where the brand has car factories, with final destination in the United States. The cargo ship, when it was close to the Azores in Portugal, about to begin the crossing of the North Atlantic, saw the beginning of the fire, which spread rapidly.
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The incident began on Wednesday and until then the cargo ship continues to burn with Volkswagen cars, being adrift. The crew consisted of 22 people and all of them have already been rescued by the Portuguese Navy.
Fire does not pose a risk of pollution in Portuguese seas, says expert
The vessel sailed 170km off the island of Faial and still remains there. Until then, the country's authorities claim that there are no signs that the cargo ship with Volkswagen cars will sink or if there are any signs of sea pollution.
The recovery of the vessel will be simpler, as will checking the damage to the freighter and what it is transporting. Unfortunately, incidents like this one with fires, extreme freezing and shipwrecks of cargo ships like this are rare and for each cargo that is lost, about 4 thousand cars are lost, considering that this is the average of Ro On Ro Off cargo ships, common in ports around the world. Here in Brazil, the port complexes of Vitória and Santos are the ones that handle the most ships of this type.
Trinity Spirit ship explodes with 10 crew
In early February, an oil tanker exploded near Nigeria, where 10 crew members were on board.. The reason for the explosion has not yet been discovered and investigations continue.
"At this time, there are no reported deaths, but we can confirm that there were 10 crew members on board the vessel prior to the incident and we are prioritizing investigations with regard to their safety," said Ikemefuna Okafor, chief executive of Nigerian company Shebah Exploration & Production Company Ltd (SEPCOL), in a statement carried by Reuters.
“The tanker is estimated to have flared the last gas in late July 2021,” TankerTrackers said. “This suggests that Trinity Spirit has not produced anything since that date, considering gas flaring during crude oil production is widespread across the region,” noted TankerTrackers.
