The massive ship, the Felicity Ace, was carrying about 4,000 vehicles, including Bentleys and Porsches, when it caught fire on Feb. 16. On Tuesday morning, it sank about 253 miles (400 kilometers) off the Azores.
The 650-foot long car carrier, was on its way from Germany to the U.S. with a load of new vehicles on board when it caught fire Wednesday, February 16, near the Azores. All 22 crew members were rescued, and the ship was left adrift and burning.
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.
According to WTVR.com, Volkswagen said its vehicles on the ship will result in a loss of about $155 million, which should be fully covered by insurance.
One of the approximately 1,100 Porsches aboard belonged to Matt Farah, a car enthusiast and the editor of The Smoking Tire. He had been waiting for the car, a 2022 metallic Boxster Spyder with a retail price of about $123,000, since August, reports the New York Times.
Mr. Farah summarized the loss on his podcast: “Car. Boat. Fire. Adrift. Like, that’s the entire story.”
According to Car and Driver, whatever caused the blaze, the kinds of roll-on-roll-off (RORO) ferries that can transport thousands of cars at once are at high risk for total loss once a fire starts on board.
“Once it’s been on board a ship that’s on fire, no one can tell you much about the integrity of the car,” said Richard Burke, a professor and chairman of naval architecture 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?”
In December 2018, another 650-foot car carrier, the Sincerity Ace, caught fire in the Pacific Ocean, about 2,000 miles northwest of Oahu, in Hawaii, while transporting about 3,500 Nissan vehicles from Japan, according to The Honolulu Star-Advertiser.
Mr. Farah said in an email that given the state of the world, the loss of a Porsche felt minor.
“There is a global pandemic that people just want to pretend doesn’t exist and move on from, and we are about to have World War III,” he wrote before the vessel sank. “I feel much worse about those things than I do about my dumb car.”
