Culture

A Huge Freighter Ship Is Stuck On Belle Isle In Detroit And The Internet Can’t Get Enough Of It

#Boats
by
big boat on the Detroit River

iStockphoto / Mark Hewer


There is a big boat stuck, once again, and the Internet is absolutely obsessed in just a matter of hours.

When the Ever Given ship was stuck in the Suez Canal in November, 2021 the Internet followed the saga with baited breath. Every minute the Ever Given was stuck in the Suez Canal meant major disruptions to the global supply chain.

While the global supply chain might not be at risk this time, the massive M/V Mark W. Barker is stuck off Belle Isle on the Detroit River and the Internet is going wild over it.

The M/V Mark W. Barker is a new ship. It was only launched the Summer of 2022 and it was the first Great Lakes bulk carrier to be built on the Great Lakes since 1981, according to The Interlake Steamship Company.

Detroit reporter Malachi Barrett shared videos of the big boat stuck off Belle Isle in the Motor City:

According to Barrett, locals were fishing ‘in the shadows’ of the stuck big boat which has a capacity of 26,000 Gross Tons. The ship is said to have gotten stuck around 8 am on Wednesday morning.

The ship lost propulsion and then got stuck in ‘soft mud and sand’, but there is believed to be no damage to Belle Isle where the big boat got stuck.

Unlike the Ever Given in the Suez Canal, the Detroit River is still open for business. There are clear shipping lanes available around the 639-foot vessel. So any ships passing between Lake Erie through the Detroit River, into Lake St. Clair, and on to Lake Huron can go about their business.

Nevertheless, the Internet has jokes:

Not a drill:

Old Twitter would’ve gone wild for this. Elon’s sucked the fun out for many, it seems:

Didn’t miss it!

Incredible moment for museum cameras:

Given how many ships are in that area, it shouldn’t be long before the big boat stuck gets pulled out and propulsion is repaired. The fact that it’s less than a year-old on the water though, and breaking down, is somewhat concerning.