4,000 Porsches, Bentleys, Lamborghinis, etc. turned into seaweed waste. Fire on cargo ship → sinking
4,000 Porsches, Bentleys, Lamborghinis, etc. turned into seaweed waste. Fire on cargo ship → sinking
Extinguishing is difficult due to EV battery flames (it is unknown whether the fire originated). Car carrier Felicity Ace drifted unmanned on the sea after a fire broke out off the coast of Portugal and all crew members were evacuated. (Felicity Ace) has finally sunk into the sea...
When and where did it sink?
According to the operating company, Mitsui O.S.K. Lines (MOL) Singapore. Regarding the flow after the fire on February 16th, the company has published it in three languages here, and the sinking has already been updated there. It sank at 9 am local time on the 1st, about 400 km offshore of the Portuguese Azores Islands in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Last Friday, the salvage team was able to board the ship, but by this time, it seems that "the smoke blowing outside has subsided." The sinking also appears to have occurred while the ship was being towed into port.
How much damage?
What I learned from The Drive's coverage was that there were many Audis and 189 Bentleys. Furthermore, according to Insider's coverage, it is also known that about 1,100 Porsches were mixed. The WSJ reported an insurer's estimate that the carrier vessel was worth $30 million and the cargo vehicle about $100 million. In total, the damage is roughly equivalent to 15 billion yen by simple calculation.
What caused the fire?
There were also many electric vehicles (EV) on board. Capt. Joao Mendes Cabecas of the nearby port of Hortas initially told Reuters that the lithium-ion battery was also on fire, but as mentioned earlier, it is possible that the fire spread from another source. Therefore, we do not know whether the lithium-ion battery of the EV caused the fire. However, EV batteries cannot be extinguished with water alone, so firefighting activities did not proceed as expected, and the rescue team said that the work was extremely difficult.
YouTuber's Dream Porsche Burns
In the sunken Porsche was Matt Farah's car, a popular YouTuber. I got a call from the dealer... I'm at a loss for words when I see a burning transport ship. I bought a Porsche 718 Spyder with a market price of about $98,300 (about 11.3 million yen). Matt's channel is called "TheSmokingTire", but I didn't expect smoke to blow from the ship... Correction [2022/03/07] Corrected a mistake in currency conversion. Sources: MOL, WSJ, Reuters, The Verge