Putting out a fire in a large ship that has become adrift in the middle of the sea is not easy. If the load also consists of highly flammable electric cars, things will become quite a challenge, as has been shown in recent days.
The Felicity Ace, a freighter carrying about 4,000 cars (including 1,100 Porsches, 189 Bentleys, and an unknown number of Lamborghinis and Volkswagens), has been burning and rudderless near the Azores for nearly a week. Attempts to put out the fire have not yet been successful, it turned out Tuesday. The fire on the ship is huge and has spread quickly due to the large amount of batteries on board, the invoked Dutch salvage company Boskalis already informed during the weekend. The Wall Street Journal†
On Wednesday 16 February, for an unknown reason, something went wrong on board the ship, which was en route from Emden in Germany – near Delfzijl – to Rhode Island in the United States. The 22 crew members managed to escape, but then the problems started.
storm weather
Not only did the fire prove difficult to put out, severe storms also made it difficult for a number of necessary heavy tugs and fire extinguishers to reach the Felicity Ace in recent days. One is expected to arrive on February 26.
On Tuesday, according to a statement from shipping company MOL, the fire was weakened, but still not out, and it was not yet possible to enter the ship. The cargo ship was too hot for that. There was no update on that on Wednesday. Boskalis said on Wednesday that it would not respond.
It is not known exactly how many battery cars were on board the ship. The Volkswagen group, which owns the brands transported on the ship, has not disclosed details of exactly what kind of cars were on board. As a result, it is not possible to estimate exactly how big the damage is.
The Wall Street Journal managed to find out that twenty Porsches on board were worth about 2.6 million euros in any case: a Porsche easily costs more than a ton. Still, analysts are not worried about the impact for Volkswagen: on the total annual turnover of around 250 billion euros, one ship is negligible.