This cruise ship 
ran into a problem while trying to reach a “port” in Kuai, Hawaii. A rather serious disaster in the making – if this was the real Earth. Apparently there are some terrain anomalies in the 3D terrain for Google Earth along this coastline. ‘svens’ at the Google Earth Community decided to grab a cruise ship model from the Google 3DWarehouse and have a little fun with illustrating the anomaly. If you open the folder on the left for the “Cruise Ship Crash” you can select the “Tour” folder and choose “Tools -> Play Tour” from the GE menu to get a tour of the site. While you’re visiting, check out Kuai – it still looks like paradise in the satellite photos in GE.
‘svens’ says he also wanted to show how easy it is to grab a 3D model and have fun in Google Earth. All you need is the free Google SketchUp and the 3DWarehouse to make your own. Digg it!
Related:
About Frank Taylor
Frank Taylor started the Google Earth Blog in July, 2005 shortly after Google Earth was first released. He has worked with 3D computer graphics and VR for many years and was very impressed with this exciting product. Frank completed a 5.5 year circumnavigation of the earth by sailboat in June 2015 which you can read about at Tahina Expedition, and is a licensed pilot, backpacker, diver, and photographer.
Don’t forget (like I did) to make sure that the “Terrain” layer is selected in the layers list. 🙂 Without it the cruise ship “hangs in the sky in much the same way that bricks don’t.”
Fun stuff; I noticed many presumably related anomalies in the Himalaya, with rivers flowing uphill along their steep valley walls.
Note that the spelling of the Hawaiian island being depicted is “Kauai”, not “Kuai”. That’s important because if you enter the latter term in Google Earth’s Search menu, it returns a “no results” message.