Compilation / Ma Xiaolei
Edit/Windsor
Design / Zhao Haoran
Source/ New York Times, by Vimal Patel
It's rare to see such a spectacle in one lifetime: thousands of expensive, rare supercars destroyed at the same time, and now they are burning on a freighter in the Atlantic Ocean.
According to the New York Times, on February 16, a Freighter Felicity Ace loaded with thousands of Volkswagen Group cars caught fire 320 kilometers from the island of Terceira in the Azores (which belongs to Portugal), and the fire has not been completely extinguished, and the accident ship is still floating on the sea.
According to Marine Traffic, a global ship location tracking website, the Felicity Ace, 650 feet (200 meters) long and weighing 60,000 tons, departed Emden, Germany, on Feb. 10 and was scheduled to arrive at the port of Davisville on Rhode Island on the east coast of the United States on Feb. 23.
Volkswagen has a large assembly plant in Emden, and the ID.4 SUV is produced at the Emden plant. At the time of the fire, felicity Ace carried 17,000 tons of cargo and had a speed of 13.2 knots.
The drive, the automotive website, reports that Volkswagen estimates that there are nearly 4,000 cars on board for the U.S. market, including several of the group's brands such as the Volkswagen ID.4, Bentley, Porsche and Lamborghini. Economist Patrick Anderson estimates the amount of cargo damage at least $255 million.
Photos released by the Portuguese Navy on Feb. 18 showed smoke billowing from the ships and at least one fire boat pouring water on the boat
Joao Mendes Cabe as, the captain of the Felicity Ace, said that due to the large number of electric vehicles on board, the particularity of the lithium-ion battery fire made it more difficult to extinguish the work, requiring the accident ship to be transported to the port with special equipment to handle.
"The whole ship was burned from head to toe. The flame rises 5 meters above the water. Captain Cabezas said at a news conference.
The cause of the fire is still unknown, and it is not yet possible to determine whether the battery was caused by a fire or if a fire in some other item ignited the battery.
According to Reuters, the Portuguese Navy, which first received the call to the police, reported that rescue work had begun, sending several towing ships, but it would be a few days before they reached the site of the accident. As the Azores could not undertake the extinguishing work, the accident ship had to be towed to the Bahamas.
According to Portuguese maritime officials, the 22 crew members had to abandon the ship due to the spread of the fire, but fortunately no one was injured and the crew was sent by helicopter to the nearby Portuguese island of Fail.
On February 18, Dutch maritime services company Boskalis said that a team of 16 teams from subsidiary SMIT Salvage had become a rescue squad, and large equipment transferred from Spain and the Netherlands was also coming to help extinguish the fire on board.
The Felicity Ace is operated by Japan's Mitsui O.S.K. Shipping Company and is owned by Snowscape Carriers SA in Panama.
The fire comes as dealers across the U.S. are navigating consumers over insufficient inventory, and automakers around the world are struggling to get on production lines over chip shortages.
Matt Farah, a car enthusiast and editor of Smoking Tire magazine, ordered a 2022 Porsche Frozen-Berry Metallic Boxster Spyder in August 2021.
The car retailed for $123,000 and was precisely modified to his request, tweeting: "The best sports car ever, without a doubt." ”
As a result, on February 16, he received heartbreaking news: the new sports car that had been waiting for 8 months was mercilessly swallowed up by the fire.
"The dealer said he had determined that my car was also on that ship." Farah said, "Other than that, I haven't received any further information. Porsche North America will notify me as soon as it has a solution. ”
Mitsui O.S.K. Shipping said it had set up a response team to coordinate the emergency and would make every effort to control the loss and resolve the issue.
Accidents on freighters transporting cars are uncommon, but they are not without precedent. In August 2019, the Golden Ray, loaded with 4,100 vehicles, capsized in windy waves off the coast of Georgia, and wreckage salvage continues to this day.