Burning Car Carrier off Dutch Coast Being Towed Away from Shipping Lanes
A burning car carrier off the Dutch coast is being towed to a new location away from shipping routes as part of a difficult operation to salvage the ship, the Dutch water board Rijkswaterstaat and media said.The ship will be towed to a location 16 km north of the Dutch islands Ameland and Schiermonnikoog, Rijkswaterstaat said in a statement on Sunday.The towing operation began on Sunday, and it was not known when the ship, which was traveling from Germany to Egypt when the fire broke out…
Burning Ship of Dutch Coast Carries 498 Electric Vehicles, Not 25 as Initially Thought
The car carrier burning off the Dutch coast since Tuesday night is carrying nearly 500 electric vehicles, ship charter company "K" Line said on Friday, significantly more than the 25 initially reported by the coastguard.The fire on the Panamanian-registered Fremantle Highway, which was carrying new cars, resulted in the death of an Indian crew member and injury of seven others who jumped overboard to escape the flames.There were 3,783 vehicles on board, including 498 battery electric vehicles, a Tokyo-based spokesperson for K Line (Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha), which had chartered the vessel, said.
Tug Boats Spray Water on Blazing Ship Carrying Luxury Cars near Azores
Heavy tug boats on Tuesday sprayed water on a burning ship carrying thousands of Porsches and Bentleys adrift off the coast of Portugal's Azores islands, the ship's manager said in a statement.The Felicity Ace, carrying around 4,000 vehicles including Porsches, Audis, and Bentleys, some with lithium-ion batteries, caught fire on Wednesday last week.The 22 crew members on board were evacuated the same day. Ship manager Mitsui O.S.K. Lines Ltd (MOL) said in a statement the vessel was still on fire but stable, and that no oil leak had been reported so far.
Felicity Ace Still Ablaze, Towing Vessels En Route
A ship carrying around 4,000 vehicles, including Porsches, Audis and Bentleys, that caught fire near the coast of the Azores will be towed to another European country or the Bahamas, the captain of the nearest port told Reuters on Friday.Lithium-ion batteries in the electric cars on board the vehicle carrier Felicity Ace have caught fire and the blaze requires specialist equipment to extinguish, captain Joao Mendes Cabecas of the port of Hortas said.It was not clear whether the batteries first sparked the fire.“The ship is burning from one end to the other...
Car Carrier Market Emerges Strong
The Carrier Car industry has emerged from the global recession with what looks like limited damage compared with the head-on collision others experienced. Drewry believes that this sector, with its small orderbook, is better positioned than most others in the shipping industry, who suffer from large newbuilding orderbooks, to weather a double-dip recession. The downturn hurt car-carrying vessels, with capacity utilisation falling significantly. Operators are now less likely to charter tonnage for long periods, instead placing an emphasis on full employment of owned tonnage. With limited numbers of newbuild vessels coming into service, increased demand is easier to meet and an excess of new capacity is not going to blight operators, if the economy retrenches.
