VW Group loses $155 million U. S.-bound car cargo to shipwreck
Volkswagen Group may have lost about $155 million as the ship carrying 4,000 of various makes from the Group sank after being badly battered by waves in rough seas.
According to reports by Reuters, Joao Mendes Cabecas, the captain of the nearest port on the island of Faial, said the ship sunk as efforts to tow it began due to structural problems caused by the fire and rough seas.
“When the towing started… water started to come in,” he said. “The ship lost its stability and sank.”
Pat Adamson, a spokesperson for MOL Ship Management, a unit of Mitsui OSK Lines Ltd., said by phone: “The weather was pretty rough out there…And then she sank, which was a surprise.”
Tug boats and salvage craft accompanying the vehicle are in the area to monitor the situation, Adamson said. There doesn’t appear to be any oil pollution yet — they’re checking on that,” the spokesperson said.
Giving details of the cargo aboard the ship which comprised mainly of Volkswagen Group’s higher-end brands, Automotive News reported that there were about 1, 900 Audi, 1, 100 Porshe, 500 Volkswagen, 189 Bentley, and 85 Lamborghini. The vehicles were being transported from Germany’s Emden port to Rhode Island.
The German carmaker had feared that large numbers of its cars on the vessel would not be salvageable, with brands and dealers notifying customers that the U.S.-bound vehicles likely wouldn’t be delivered. Damage to the cars is covered by insurance, the automaker had said last week on getting the news of the ship being in trouble.
The Felicity Ace eventually sank 220 nautical miles off the coast of Portugal’s Azores Islands around 9 a.m. local time on Tuesday amid efforts to tow it safely. The ship had been battered by waves, caught fire, lasting for more than a week, and was already leaning 45 degrees to its starboard side and was left adrift with crew evacuated to safety before it succumbed to waves.
Russell Group, the risk-modeling company last week estimated that the incident could cost the automaker at least $155 million. About $438 million worth of goods were aboard the ship, $401 million of which were cars.
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