Firefighters struggle to douse blaze on burning ship

LISBON -- Firefighters are struggling to put out a fire that broke out on Wednesday on a vessel carrying thousands of luxury cars, which is adrift off the coast of Portugal's Azores islands, a port official said, adding it was unclear when they would succeed.

The Felicity Ace ship, carrying about 4,000 vehicles including Porsches, Audis and Bentleys, some electric with lithium-ion batteries, caught fire near the coast of the Azores on Wednesday. The 22 crew members on board were evacuated on the same day.

Bloomberg, quoting an internal VW email, reported Friday that 3,965 vehicles are on board the ship.

"The intervention (to put out the blaze) has to be done very slowly," João Mendes Cabeças, captain of the nearest port in the Azorean island of Faial, told Reuters late on Saturday. "It will take a while."

Lithium-ion batteries in the electric vehicles on board are "keeping the fire alive," Cabeças said, adding that specialist equipment to extinguish it was on the way.

It was not clear whether the batteries sparked the fire.

Volkswagen, which owns the brands, did not confirm the total number of cars on board and said on Friday it was awaiting further information.

Ship manager Mitsui O.S.K. Lines Ltd 9104.T did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Cabeças previously said that "everything was on fire about five meters above the water line" and the blaze was still far from the ship's fuel tanks. It is getting closer, he said.

"The fire spread further down," he said, explaining that teams could only tackle the fire from outside by cooling down the ship's structure as it was too dangerous to go on board.

They also cannot use water because adding weight to the ship could make it more unstable, and traditional water extinguishers do not stop lithium-ion batteries from burning, Cabeças said.

Towing boats were on route from Gibraltar and the Netherlands, with three due to arrive by Wednesday, Cabecas said. He added the vessel could not be towed to the Azores because it was so big it would block trade at the port.

U.S. economist Patrick Anderson last week first estimated the initial loss could be $255 million, but by Friday bumped his calculation up to $282 million.

"Looking at the entire cargo, assuming that three-fourths of the vehicles are a total loss, and averaging the wholesale value at a lower amount (to account for the VWs plus some Bentleys and a lot of Audis), suggests this involves about $376,675,000 worth of cargo. Probably three-fourths of that, or $282,506,250 is a total loss, if the ship is indeed still burning as of now (as is reported and for which we have video evidence.)

"Again, we do not have a good assessment of the degree of damage to the cargo from any inspection, but fire, water, smoke, and submersion damage are all overlapping likelihoods for these vehicles.

"These amounts do not include the downstream loss at dealers. It also doesn’t include any salvage, environmental, or other costs, nor the ship itself, nor any lost wages of the crew or costs to the Portuguese that rescued them."

A 16-person salvage team from Smit Salvage, owned by Dutch marine engineer Boskalis, was sent to the ship to help control the flames, Boskalis said.

The Panama-flagged ship, owned by Snowscape Car Carriers SA and managed by Mitsui O.S.K. Lines Ltd., was travelling from Emden, Germany -- where Volkswagen has a factory -- to Davisville, Rhode Island, based on the Maritime Traffic website. Davisville is a port about 70 miles south of Boston, Massachusetts.

About 1,100 Porsches and 189 Bentleys were on board, spokespeople for the car brands said. Audi, another Volkswagen brand, confirmed some of its vehicles were also on the ship but did not state how many.

An internal email from Volkswagen’s U.S. operations revealed there were 3,965 Volkswagen Group vehicles aboard the ship.

More than 100 of those cars were headed for the Port of Houston in Texas, with GTI, Golf R, and ID.4 models deemed to be at risk, according to the email. The auto industry is already struggling with supply issues, including pandemic-related staffing woes and the global chip shortage.

YouTuber Matt Farah, whose automotive review channel "The Smoking Tire" has more than a million followers, said on Twitter he was contacted by a car dealer who said the Porsche he ordered was aboard the ship.

"My car is now adrift, possibly on fire, in the middle of the ocean," Farah tweeted.

It’s not the first time the manufacturer has lost merchandise at sea. When the Grande America caught fire and sank in 2019, more than 2,000 luxury cars, including Audis and Porsches, sank with it.

A spokesperson for Lamborghini’s U.S. operation declined to comment on the number of cars the company had on board or which models were affected, but said that they are in contact with the shipping company to get more information about the incident.

Felicity Ace is roughly the size of three football fields.

Reuters, Bloomberg and Philip Nussel from Automotive News contributed to this report