If your head is not stuck in the sand you may have heard of a certain large ship that is currently blocking the Suez Canal. One of the world’s most important trade routes, this barrier has disrupted a huge number of cargo ships and caused an estimated trade loss of billion $6 billion to $10 billion. Of course, the ever-sympathetic and benevolent power, the Internet has come out in primitive form to create lots of memes, unravel more ridiculous parts of the story, and even create games based on it.
Now, a model game from Microsoft Flight Simulator has updated the game by adding Ever Given to the Suez Canal-A-Game. For a game that prides itself on realism and perfect simulation, this is truly appropriate. In a video posted to Ticket, user @donut_enforcement shared the modded creation while flying over the Suez Canal and commented on the ridiculous new model. He accompanied the video with the headline ‘Microsoft Flight Sim is a Barbarian’ and we are keen to agree to that.
Unfortunately, this is only a mode and probably will not be in the vanilla game. Evergreen is a golden-class container ship, making it one of the largest ships in the world, operated by the Evergreen Marine. While running the standard route to Rotterdam, NL, the 220,000-metric-ton ship was blown to the side with a strong dust storm, spinning it tightly on both sides of the narrow banks of the Suez Canal.
At its ‘narrowest point’ the small Suez Canal, 1000 feet below the width, is already a nightmare for large ships to navigate, with poor visibility and strong winds alone. Capt. Bill Kenny, a lecturer in navigation at Ireland’s National Maritime College, explained to The Pat Kenny Show how the pressures of traveling through this international choke-point are actually.
“The process is extremely stressful for the ship. These ships are at high altitude and have a very good routine. Then they reach Port Said or even Suez … and all of a sudden all the hell is loose,” Kavanaugh explained. Luckily, there seems to be hope in the story. To this day, Ever Given was finally resorted to off the coast, revising the course by 80%. With the bow in shallow water, rescuers hope to try to evacuate the ship as the tide turns.
However, experts warn that this will not be an easy operation and caution should be exercised before expectations are too high. Meanwhile, the ESA has now deployed Ever Given to its location on March 25 and released an incredible satellite image depicting the resulting traffic jam in the Gulf of Suez.
