The crew of the Felicity Ace has been rescued, but the fate of as many as 4000 cars on board—including a number of Porsches’—is currently unknown.

  • It’s still too early to know for sure how many vehicles were on board, but the car carrier sent out a distress call February 16 and had to be towed to the Azores. All crew members on board have reportedly been rescued, and the data website FleetMon is updating the ship’s status.
  • According to people who claim to have ordered some of the Porsches on board, the automaker is aware of the situation and is telling people to hold on for more information once Porsche “know[s] the full scope of the issue.”
  • This is also a bit of a flashback to 2019, when another ship caught fire with Porsches on board. That ship sank, and Porsche even restarted production for the small number of limited-edition Porsche 911 GT2 RS cars that were lost.
Source- YT Channel:
Força Aérea Portuguesa

First, the good news. The roll-on-roll-off (RORO) car carrier was around 90 nautical miles southwest of the Azore Islands when it issued its first distress signal on the morning of February 16. According to FleetMon, which tracks ocean vessels, all 22 crew members were safely evacuated from the ship by helicopter and lifeboat. The Felicity Ace has been towed to the Azores, and ships from the Portugal Navy and other nearby vessels assisted with the rescue. This content is imported from YouTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their website.

Source: Fleetmon

Every now and then, the name of an ocean freighter becomes important in the automotive world. The latest entry is the Felicity Ace, a car-carrier that was carrying an unspecified number of Volkswagen Group vehicles, including Porsche models, from Germany to Rhode Island. That was the ship’s mission until yesterday when a fire broke out on board. The flames were bad enough that the captain had to abandon the ship, and we do not yet know the fate of the vehicles on board. Details are coming in—we don’t yet know the cause of the fire, for example—and more information will need to be confirmed by VW and other authorities to determine the cause and eventual result of this incident. Here’s what we know at the moment.

There’s history to suggest that Porsche will make sure its customers will get the cars they ordered since this isn’t the first time Porsche has had to deal with some of its vehicles not surviving their transoceanic journey.

In 2019, the ship Grande America caught fire with four limited Porsche 911 GT2 RS cars on board, along with 33 other Porsches and 2000 or so brand-new Audis that were on their way from Germany to South America. Porsche had already finished making any more of those limited-edition 911s, but it restarted production for the four GT2 RS buyers to keep its commitment to its customers willing to spend $300,000 on a car.