Two weeks after it caught fire, a giant ship carrying thousands of luxury cars sank about 253 miles off the Azores Tuesday morning, according to the company that operated the ship.
The ship, the Felicity Ace, sank at about 9 a.m. local time after it tilted to starboard and plunged some 4,000 cars — including more than 1,000 Porsches and 200 Bentleys — into the sea, the company, MOL Ship Management, said.
Environmental groups were very concerned that the ship would sink and the pollution it would cause in the unique ecosystem of the Azores, Portugal’s North Atlantic archipelago, where the seabed is covered with coral reefs, coral forests and sponges.
According to Oceana, an environmental group, the area is home to sperm whales, blue whales, humpback whales, dolphins and sharks, among others.
A huge ship like the Felicity Ace can hold more than three million liters of heavy fuel, as well as oil, according to Oceana. Other pollutants in a boat include electrical wires, paint and plastic.
A fire broke out in the cargo hold of the ship six days after it set sail from Emden, Germany, to the port of Davisville in Rhode Island. MOL Ship Management did not say how or why the fire started.
Nearby commercial ships and a helicopter rescued the ship’s 22 crew. No one was injured in the evacuation.
But the Felicity Ace, which is 200 feet long, caught fire and billowed smoke adrift off the coast of Western Europe.
There were several attempts to extinguish the fire and assess the damage to the ship.
Photos shared by the Portuguese Navy showed the ship consumed by white smoke. A photo showed a smaller boat spraying water on the Felicity Ace. The center section of the ship appeared to be scorched.
The Portuguese navy said on Friday that a team of experts had arrived by helicopter the day before. MOL Ship Management said a large salvage tug had begun towing the Felicity Ace to “a safe area” off the Azores.
“The ship, apparently stable, has no fire on the outside or inside, although there is a high temperature in the central area, with no smoke in the structure,” the Navy said at the time.
But Tuesday morning, when the ship was towed, it “lost stability and sank,” the Portuguese navy said.
“A small patch of oily residue” was visible and scattered by the water jets from the tugboats, the Navy said. The area was under surveillance by Portuguese and European environmental officials, the navy said in a statement.
Angus Fitton, a spokesperson for Porsche Cars North America Inc., expressed relief that the members of the Felicity Ace crew were “safe and sound” and said the company “supports our customers to the best of their ability”.
“We are already working to replace every affected car,” he said, “and the first cars will be built soon.” Mr Fitton did not say when that would be.
One of the Porsches on board belonged to Matt Farah, a car enthusiast and the editor of The Smoking Tire.
He’d been waiting for the car since August, a 2022 metal Boxster Spyder with a retail price of about $123,000.
mr. Farah summed up the loss in his podcast: “Car. Boat. Firework. adrift. Like, that’s the whole story.”
Maritime specialists said that even if the ship had been rescued, the cars on board would most likely have been scrapped.
“Once it’s been aboard a ship that’s on fire, no one can tell you much about the car’s integrity,” said Richard Burke, a professor and chair of naval and marine engineering at the State University of New York Maritime College. . “So if you can’t do that, why would you agree to a warranty contract on that car?”
mr. Farah, on his podcast, agreed.
“If it’s not the fire, it’s the molten lithium,” he said. “If it’s not the molten lithium, it’s the smoke. And if it’s not the smoke, it’s the seawater.”
dr. Burke noted that fires on motorcoaches can be very difficult to put out because the ships typically had thousands of vehicles on board, and each vehicle would have a gallon of gasoline, half a gallon of motor oil, and four rubber tires that could burn.
“These are really difficult fires; they are terrible,” said Dr. Burke, adding: “Once the fire is up and running, the crew doesn’t have much of a chance to put out the fire.”
In December 2018, according to The Honolulu Star-Advertiser, another 200-foot car carrier, the Sincerity Ace, caught fire in the Pacific Ocean, about 2,000 miles northwest of Oahu, in Hawaii, while carrying about 3,500 Nissan vehicles from Japan.
Mr Farah, who discusses cars three hours a week on his show, said in an email that given the state of the world, the loss of a Porsche seemed small.
“There’s a global pandemic that people just want to pretend don’t exist and move on, and we’re about to have World War III,” he wrote before the ship sank. “I feel a lot worse about those things than about my stupid car.”
Michael Levenson reporting contributed.
