What do you call a giant ship full of Porsches and Bentleys on fire?

[Pekelo]

I don't suppose they can salvage the cars?

Well, the boat sunk, so no. But even without sinking and having fire damage, the answer for legal reasons is no.

Back in the 2000s a Mazda ship stayed tilted for weeks, because the ship got out of balance, but there was very little damage to the cars. Mazda still decided to scrap all the cars, because of insurance reasons. Fluids not reaching certain parts for extended time can cause later problems, etc. They had to blow all the airbags out I think in Oregon, one state where there was no environmental law against it. 2 guys in gas mask went from car to car and blew 20K+ airbags for weeks.

https://www.autoblog.com/2006/07/27/cargo-ship-cougar-ace-tips-over-4-700-mazdas-aboard/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Cougar_Ace

 

[mlawson71]

Thank you do much for clarifying that, I had no idea!

 

[Frederick Foresight]

EVs. The way of the FUTURE!

Yeah, I hear they're on fire. A hot commodity.

 

[Overnight]

Yeah, I hear they're on fire. A hot commodity.

I hear you can get them cheap during the latest fire sales.

 

[Sprout]

Maritime Law bitches!!! Arrgh!!!

A ship full of luxury cars worth of 334MM caught on fire 4 days ago and the crew abandoned it. By maritime law, whoever boards the ship is entitled to a % of the leftover.

Current status:

https://www.dailybreeze.com/2022/02...drift-in-atlantic-may-finally-be-burning-out/

"it carried around 4,000 vehicles, including Porsches, Volkswagens, Lamborghinis, Bentleys and Audis from Emden, Germany to Davisville, Rhode Island. All 22 crew members on board safely abandoned ship after the fire began to spread.

captain João Mendes Cabeças told the Portuguese news agency Lusa that “the fire had subsided in recent hours,” thanks to a lack of materials left to blaze through."

Anybody wants to rent a helicopter with me?

By the way if you wondered what fueled the fire, it was the EVs:

" the fire was being kept alive by the lithium-ion batteries of the electric cars on board, with flames edging closer and closer to the fuel tanks of the ship."

The law of salvage is pretty fascinating. One time in Marathon off the Florida Keys, we were considering making that claim on a vessel that was taking on water moored in the harbor. We had just finished a crossing from Cuba and were enjoying a bit of the Cruising Lifestyle being hosted by an Australian Captain and spent about 6wks on his sailboat sailing up from Belize.

Enamored with that lifestyle, we kept looking at this sailboat listing in the water with rattled sails and decided to do some research in the local library about maritime law.

We did eventually board, but the amount of water, the general state of the sailboat and the storm that gave us the excuse looked like more trouble than it was worth. Tales had it that the wealth in Key West was largely obtained by those that were more active in claiming the rights of salvage.

We wondered why this sailboat seemed to be abandoned in the harbor, but when one considers life events, a vessel could be involuntarily abandoned due to a number of circumstances.