Fogbow

Cargo ship carrying cars to U.S. catches fire, is adrift in mid-Atlantic without crew
Volkswagen Group declined to comment on what consequences the incident on the Felicity Ace might have for U.S. customers or the company.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/carg ... -rcna16675

A burning car transport ship drifted in the mid-Atlantic on Thursday after the huge vessel’s 22 crew members were evacuated due to the blaze, the Portuguese navy said.

Shipping in the area was warned that the 650-feet-long Felicity Ace was adrift near Portugal’s Azores Islands after the crew were taken off on Wednesday, Portuguese navy spokesman Cmdr. José Sousa Luís said.

The Felicity Ace can carry more than 18,700 tons of cargo. Typically, car transport ships fit thousands of vehicles on multiple decks in their hold.

Volkswagen Group said in a brief statement the Felicity Ace was transporting to the U.S. vehicles that the German automaker produced. The company declined to comment on what consequences the incident might have for U.S. customers or the VW Group.

A happy ending.

Fire breaks out on ferry in Greece with 288 people on board
Tug boats sent to help passengers on the Euroferry Olympia, which was headed to Italy

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/ ... 1645165235

The Italian-flagged Euroferry Olympia was headed to the port of Brindisi from the Greek city of Igoumenitsa when the fire broke out on Friday morning near the island of Corfu in the Ionian Sea.

The coast guard said 237 passengers and 51 crew members were on board.

All passengers are safe and on rescue boats, the Greek secretary of state for the merchant navy, Kostas Katsafados, told Greek radio station Skai.

The passengers and crew were being taken to Corfu, authorities said. Weather conditions in the area were mild.

No casualties have been reported and police said three tug boats and three patrol boats were sent to help passengers.

Do they have insurance for that?

Water, water everywhere;
Nor a drop to
Put out the burning luxury cars.

raison de arizona wrote: ↑Fri Feb 18, 2022 4:34 pm Do they have insurance for that?

Yes - the ship owner has. But the customers will have to wait a long time until their personally tailored car gets back on the production line among the supply chain issues.

Don't have the link any longer but recently there was an article about trains in Florida and the Florida Men And Women totally ignoring the stop signs and circumventing the closed barriers (like in above case). My take from the article was that the train services had been shut down for a lengthy time and only last year started to operate again. IIRC the article mentioned daily incidents with weekly deaths (I could be misremembering).

That's my 'hood...

The passenger trains had been on reduced or nonexistent service for quite a while, and the news has been telling everyone for the past two months that the trains are coming back. They've been doing training runs for several weeks.

But you can always count on stupidity to come through.

LAKE WORTH BEACH, Fla. — A Brightline train early Wednesday morning collided with a vehicle for the third time in four days in Palm Beach County.

The wreck happened just before 6:30 a.m. in the area of Latona Avenue and Railroad Avenue, just south of Washington Avenue near Dixie Highway in Lake Worth Beach.

https://www.wptv.com/news/region-c-palm ... ach-county

https://abcnews.go.com/International/wi ... c-83179515

LISBON, Portugal -- A large cargo vessel carrying cars from Germany to the United States sank Tuesday in the mid-Atlantic, 13 days after a fire broke out on board, the ship’s manager and the Portuguese navy said.

The Felicity Ace sank about 400 kilometers (250 miles) off Portugal’s Azores Islands as it was being towed, MOL Ship Management in Singapore said in a statement. A salvage team had put out the fire.

The 200-meter-long (650-foot-long) vessel listed to starboard before going under, the ship’s manager said.

The Portuguese navy confirmed the sinking, saying it occurred outside Portuguese waters. A Portuguese Air Force helicopter evacuated the 22 crew members when the fire first broke out, setting the ship adrift.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-14/ ... /100909240

Australia and the Netherlands have initiated legal proceedings against Russia for the downing of flight MH17.

Key points:

Legal proceedings against Russia over the downed MH17 flight will be brought to the International Civil Aviation Organization
Russia has refused to negotiate with Australia and the Netherlands over MH17 since October 2020
The action is separate to Dutch prosecution of four individuals it alleges are criminally responsible
All 298 people on board the plane, including 38 Australian citizens and residents, died when a Russian-made Buk missile hit the plane in 2014.

Both Australia and the Netherlands maintain Russia was responsible under international law for the attack, and have now initiated legal proceedings against the Russian Federation in the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

We had a cruise that was supposed to leave from Acapulco and go through the Panama Canal. No one said a word at the airport, but as we were boarding the ship, we were given a note saying that the ship had had problems the previous day leaving the previous port, and the ship was still being inspected. About an hour later, it was announced that drinks were on the house. We knew we weren't going anywhere. It turns out that the ship's hull had a big tear in it and was going into dry dock. Acapulco doesn't have a huge airport, so it was going to take days to get everyone off the ship and back home. We were on for three days. We had free tours, got to see the rock divers, and kick around Acapulco for three days. We were finally put on a bus to Mexico City, put up overnight, and then flown home from there. Basically, we had a free vacation in Acapulco.

Princess Cruise Line gave us all our money back for that "cruise" that went nowhere, and gave us 50 percent off on another one. We ended up two months later on the same ship after it came back from dry dock. We watched the ship cam as it was being repaired. With the deal we got, instead of a ten-day cruise, we got a fourteen-day cruise that went from Puerto Rico to LA. We were more than happy with the way that turned out.

We were lucky, though, that since my husband ran his own business, we were able to easily reschedule the cruise. I can understand the disappointment that other people who were not in our position felt.

We recently visited friends who live aboard their boat at San Pedro Harbor. They had a front row view of the cargo ships floating in line, waiting for months to unload.

In the afternoon we went for a ride in their speed boat to explore the harbor.

We got very close to a Norwegian Lines cruise ship - our host says there’s a dedicated team from the Norwegian Embassy that comes to play them off with the Norwegian national anthem every time they embark on a cruise. Also there was an Evergreen container ship. Good Lord, all those ships are HUGE. And the gantries/cranes/loaders are 10 stories tall.

This is their home:
Norwegian with a corner of Evergreen Coast Guard Now I want to live on a boat.

Massive chain reaction pile up in PA. even after you can't see any more crashes, you can hear them off in the distance.

Oh my! The weather has been crazy here today, although this isn't too close to us. I could barely see out the windows past about 20 feet earlier. It's not really a lot of snow, but it gets really heavy at times. Windy. Weird weather. March came in like a lamb, and it's probably going out like one by Saturday, but in between has been a real roller coaster.

You're looking on the left at oncoming traffic.

I had to watch it a few times to catch it.

above as it happened

https://www.rawstory.com/ship-carrying- ... ast-coast/

A tanker carrying 750 tonnes of diesel fuel from Egypt to Malta sank Saturday in the Gulf of Gabes off Tunisia's southeast coast, sparking a rush to avoid a spill.

"The ship sank this morning in Tunisian territorial waters. For the moment, there is no leak," local court spokesman Mohamed Karray said.

A disaster prevention committee would meet in the coming hours "to decide on the measures to be taken", he added.

The Equatorial Guinea-flagged Xelo was headed from the Egyptian port of Damietta to the European island of Malta when it requested entry to Tunisian waters on Friday evening due to bad weather.