🚢 Cargo Ship Canal Simulator 3D

Drive a ship the size of a street

Cargo Ship Canal Simulator 3D is a free ship simulator that you play in your browser. Your ship is enormous, stacked high with colourful containers, and the canal ahead is a narrow ribbon of blue water cutting through the desert sand. Your job is to take the ship from one end to the other without touching the banks, without speeding and on time, then bring it to a stop in the anchorage.

That is much harder than it sounds, because a big ship does not behave like a car or a speedboat. It takes a long time to speed up and a very long time to slow down. Its rudder needs time to swing, and the bow keeps going straight for a while after you turn. A good canal captain is always thinking a long way ahead.

The engine telegraph

There is no gas pedal on a cargo ship. Instead, the bridge has an engine telegraph, a dial that sends orders down to the engine room. Press W to move the order up one step and S to move it down through seven orders: Full Astern, Half Astern, Stop, Dead Slow, Slow, Half Ahead and Full Ahead. The engine spools up or down to match, so the ship changes speed gradually. To slow down for a bend, you ring the order down well before you reach it.

Rudder and bow thruster

A and D turn the rudder. The rudder angle shows on screen and the ship starts to swing slowly, then keeps swinging, so you often need to steer the other way to stop the turn. For tight spots there is a bow thruster, a sideways propeller in the bow: Q pushes the bow to the left and E to the right. It only works when the ship is going slowly, which makes it perfect for lining up in a passing bay or the anchorage.

Rules of the canal

The canal has a speed limit, because the waves from a fast ship wash away the banks, and going over it costs you a star. Touching the banks damages the hull. At red signals you must pull into a passing bay and wait while a convoy of oncoming ships goes by. At the swing bridge you must slow down and wait while a train crosses, then the bridge swings open. Running a red signal or hitting the bridge ends the run.

Eight routes

Training Run is a gentle first transit to learn the telegraph and the slow rudder. The Bends has S-bends where you must start turning early. Bitter Lake crosses a wide lake where you must stay between the red and green buoys, because outside the channel the water is shallow. Night Convoy has you waiting in a passing bay in the dark. Swing Bridge brings the train and the bridge. Sandstorm fills the air with dust while gusty wind pushes the ship sideways. Two-Way Traffic has two bays and two convoys. And the Grand Transit is the whole canal: bends, the lake, the bridge and a convoy.

Three ships

The Feeder Ship is 42 metres long and the easiest to handle. The Container Ship, 60 metres long, unlocks at 5 stars. The Mega Carrier, an 84-metre giant, unlocks at 14 stars and needs the most planning of all. Three stars on a route mean a hull above 95%, no speeding and arriving on schedule.

Tips

Ring the telegraph down a long way before every bend and every signal. Start turning about one ship length before the bend, then steer back against the turn as you come out of it. On the long straights, press T for time warp to speed the clock up, and switch it off before anything tricky. Use the bridge camera (C) to see the canal the way a real captain does, and the top-down camera to check your position in a passing bay.

Play anywhere

Cargo Ship Canal Simulator 3D runs in any modern browser on computers, Chromebooks, tablets and phones, with no download and no account. Use the keyboard, or the on-screen buttons on a touchscreen. Your stars and unlocked ships are saved only in your own browser. See the Parents & Safety page for more.

More games like this

Dock a 60 m container ship at the quay in Boat Docking 3D, or drive the container ship on harbour jobs in Boat Simulator 3D. Love giant machines? Try the Train Games, and find every boat game on our Boat Games page.

Frequently asked questions