After Burning for Days, a Ship Carrying Thousands of Luxury Cars Sinks

[ABS News Service/04.03.2022]

Two weeks after catching fire, a mammoth ship that was transporting thousands of luxury cars sank on Tuesday morning about 253 miles off the Azores, according to the company that managed the vessel.

The ship, the Felicity Ace, went down at about 9 a.m. local time after tilting starboard, plunging about 4,000 cars — including more than 1,000 Porsches and 200 Bentleys — into the sea, according to the company, MOL Ship Management.

Environmental groups had been deeply concerned that the ship would sink and about the pollution it would cause in the unique ecosystem of the Azores, the Portuguese archipelago in the North Atlantic, where the seabed is covered with coral reefs, coral forests and sponges.

The area is home to sperm whales, blue whales, humpback whales, dolphins and sharks, among other species, according to Oceana, an environmental group.

A massive vessel 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 plastics.

A fire broke out in the ship’s cargo hold six days after it departed from Emden, Germany, for the port of Davisville in Rhode Island. MOL Ship Management has not said how or why the fire started.

Nearby commercial ships and a helicopter rescued the ship’s 22 crew members. No one was injured during the evacuation.

But the Felicity Ace, which is 650 feet long, remained aflame and billowed smoke, adrift off the shore of Western Europe.

There were several efforts to extinguish the fire and assess the damage to the vessel.

Photos shared by the Portuguese Navy showed the vessel consumed by white smoke. One photo showed a smaller boat spraying water onto the Felicity Ace. The midsection of the ship appeared to be scorched.