Oops! 'Ferry crash' unstitches Google maps

AHOY THERE: This screenshot from Google Maps appears to show two boats colliding in Sydney's Circular Quay.

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The gremlins have burrowed into Google Maps again, seemingly causing a ferry collision and a boat to sink in Sydney's Circular Quay.

Google Maps explorers spotted both oddities when scouring through the site's satellite images of Sydney Harbour.

The ferry "collision" appears right beside a giant cruise liner - either the Queen Elizabeth 2 or Queen Mary 2 - which was docked at Sydney Cove when the photographs were taken.

The image appears to show a ferry travelling at full speed colliding with a smaller boat. Metres away, another boat appears submerged under water except for the tip of its nose.

A Google Australia spokesman said both cases were "image stitching errors" and "the ferries in Circular Quay have definitely been brought to our attention".

A few weeks before last year's APEC summit, much of the Sydney CBD as it appeared on Google Maps was fuzzed out. Google denied the quality of the images was downgraded because of security concerns for the 21 visiting world leaders, saying instead it was a "commercial issue" with a supplier.

The Google spokesman said any suggestion the issue had anything to do with APEC was "an interesting conspiracy theory, but it was incorrect".

Since then the quality of images has improved significantly but, in some areas, not quite to the level they were at before, when tree branches and garbage bin lids, for instance, were clearly discernible.

Google Maps Australia recently overtook Sensis' Whereis.com.au as the most popular online mapping site, with the sites recording unique audiences in January of 1.732 million and 1.41 million, respectively, Nielsen figures show.