A cargo ship carrying luxury cars that caught fire Wednesday is under control and heading toward the Bahamas, Portuguese officials said Tuesday.
Six days after a fire caused the Felicity Ace to be evacuated and abandoned for a time to drift in the Atlantic Ocean near the Azore Islands, the flames are dying out due to efforts by the Portuguese navy. Two tugboats have been hosing the ship’s hull to cool it, and two more will arrive by the end of the week to begin hauling toward the Bahamas, harbormaster Capt. Joao Mendes Cabecas told the Associated Press.
The crews did not douse the internal flames directly to avoid lithium battery runoff contaminating the ocean. Though the cause of the blaze is unknown, the combustible lithium batteries in the electric cars on board may be the culprits, Mendes Cabecas said. The Felicity Ace will be taken to the Bahamas because the Azores do not have a port large enough to service the massive ship.
Photos from the Portuguese maritime authority showed heavy burns on the bow and sides of the ship.
“The ship is burning from one end to the other … everything is on fire about five metres above the water line,” Cabecas told Reuters last week.
SHIP CARRYING THOUSANDS OF CARS BURNING AND ADRIFT IN ATLANTIC OCEAN
The 22 crew members of the Felicity Ace were rescued Wednesday shortly after the fire broke out. A Portuguese naval ship answered the crew’s distress call and rescued the members. However, the 4,000 luxury cars, which includes 1,100 Porsches and 189 Bentleys, remain on board.
YouTuber Matt Farah said his Porsche was on the ship, which had been en route from Emden, Germany, to Davisville, Rhode Island, when the fire broke out.
“The dealer confirmed that my car, along with at least a dozen other vehicles they were expecting, is on that boat,” Farah told CNN. “They had no further information for me beyond confirming my car was on the boat, and said that as soon as Porsche Cars North America has a plan of any kind with how to proceed, that they would share the plans with me.”
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The Portuguese navy stationed an ocean patrol vessel near the ship to keep an eye on the burning vessel and monitor whether it begins to sink or causes any pollution, Portuguese navy spokesman Cmdr. Jose Sousa Luis said, according to the Associated Press.
