Noah's Ark could float! (theoretically)

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Yes, I think everybody here knows that. So why we can't drop this silly requirement that the Ark that has to handle outlandish fictional weather, and just concentrate on whether it could float?

Most of New Orleans floated at one point a few years ago, but it wasn't exactly seaworthy. You can't blow off the weather, they were in it for a half a year or so, and the odds are very good that at least one good size storm came up during that time.

 

[Iamme]

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Noah is a character in a fictional story copied from a much older fictional story.

A sobering thought for the believers. But...they probably dont believe the two stories are related. .
What would kids think if for years they always thought the Easter Bunny brought the basket of goodies, then later read somewhere that it was really the toothfairy that was bringing it?

 

[I Ratant]

If floating is all that concerns you, then let's just say that the ark was a bunch of planks held together with mud. Yeah, it'll float. Staying together is another matter.

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Where would the full length planks/logs come from?
How would shorter planks/logs be joined to prevent hogging and sagging?
How would a bunch of sheep herders with NO experience with a real sea/ocean know how to build a craft which was not possible at that time, and have it survive the sea?
As mentioned, a boat that size made solely of wood without steel construction is, in two words.. im possible! Always has been and always be.

 

[HansMustermann]

Full length planks... 500 ft long or so? (Considering the curvature too.)

 

[asydhouse]

Little known fact: When Noah realized the lack of food, he decided the only thing to do was slaughter the dinosaurs and feed them to the other animals.

Ta daaahh! And with one leap, the creationists were free!



And yet, as far as I know, not one of them has thought of this. Duh!

You da Man, Pup!

 

[Megalodon]

Yes, I think everybody here knows that. So why we can't drop this silly requirement that the Ark that has to handle outlandish fictional weather, and just concentrate on whether it could float?

You were told already that it wouldn't, and explained why. We know that because no skilled ship builder could ever do a vessel of that size entirely out of wood. The physics involved are quite well known.

An Ark-sized vessel would break under it's own weight, probably as soon as deployed, definitely when loaded. The weather conditions are just icing on the BS cake.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

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Where would the full length planks/logs come from?

Ships are not generally made from 'full-length' planks, rather they use shorter planks joined together - but you knew that.

How would shorter planks/logs be joined to prevent hogging and sagging?

Here's what Wikipedia has to say about the Tessarakonteres (which was almost as long as the Ark),

"A hull of such size would involve great bend-induced stresses, which were dealt with using strake edge jointing. The plank shear issue was more directly addressed in the ancient practice of mortise and tenon-jointed planks (strakes), which 'certainly goes back to 14th century BC and very probably before that'."​

How would a bunch of sheep herders with NO experience with a real sea/ocean know how to build a craft which was not possible at that time,

The Bible says that Noah was 500 years old. I bet he picked up a bit more than just shepherding in that period of time, and who's to say he wasn't a master boat builder? And what does it matter what experience a fictional character had anyway?

Often something that hasn't been attempted is dubbed 'impossible', and then someone does it and suddenly it isn't. No doubt some Greeks scoffed when the Tessarakonteres was proposed, just like people did when Howard Hughes announced that he would build the Spruce Goose from wood (and it still holds the record for largest wingspan of any aircraft in history!).

As mentioned, a boat that size made solely of wood without steel construction is, in two words.. im possible! Always has been and always be.

There it is again - bare assertion without supporting evidence. Yet nobody is arguing that the Tessarakonteres was impossible, even though it was nearly as long as the Ark. So let's see your figures proving that a length of 128m is doable, but 135m is 'impossible'.

 

[HansMustermann]

Technically the Greeks laughed at the Tessarakonteres even after it was built, and considered it to be just for show. As well as dangerous to operate even in the relatively calm waters of the Mediterranean when not anchored.

But yes, just like the Olympia, in rough waters on a planetary ocean, it would have been not as much a voyage, as a burial at sea.

There is a reason you see relatively large boats in the Mediterranean or on the Nile, back then, but not so much in the Atlantic.

 

[Megalodon]

Here's what Wikipedia has to say about the Tessarakonteres (which was almost as long as the Ark),

"A hull of such size would involve great bend-induced stresses, which were dealt with using strake edge jointing. The plank shear issue was more directly addressed in the ancient practice of mortise and tenon-jointed planks (strakes), which 'certainly goes back to 14th century BC and very probably before that'."​

The Tessakonteres was a display ship, probably a a catamaran. In addition it's size might have been exaggerated.
The Ark was a box, flat bottomed and higher than the Tessa, and would have been subjected to wholly different stresses.

 

[George]

Often something that hasn't been attempted is dubbed 'impossible', and then someone does it and suddenly it isn't. No doubt some Greeks scoffed when the Tessarakonteres was proposed, just like people did when Howard Hughes announced that he would build the Spruce Goose from wood (and it still holds the record for largest wingspan of any aircraft in history!).

And it probably holds the record for the shortest flight of an aircraft that size.

The Spruce Goose did not fly very far, about a mile. The plane only made one flight on November 2, 1947. The Spruce Goose, also known as the Hughes H-4 Hercules, was the brainchild of Howard Hughes. The plane was designed to be a heavy transport plane. The aircraft was made of wood due to restrictions on aluminum during wartime. The aircraft was reported to heavy to be safe for regular flights. The unit was more of a flying boat than a plane. en.wikipedia.org

eta, what is gopher wood anyway?

 

[bruto]

deleted

Many things are deemed impossible until attempted. Those that turn out to be possible are struck off the list. Those that are not attempted cannot hitchhike off the list on their backs.

The arguments here sound a bit like those of bigfooters using the coelacanth as an argument for its likelihood.

 

[MRC_Hans]

False equivalence. A weather report is not the same as a command to build something.

If the weather report says that it will rain, do you also expect it to be windy even though that wasn't forecast? Of course not, though some skeptics apparently think otherwise.

If I hear a weather report from the met office, I will expect it to contain info on both wind and rain. However, if i just hear from somebody that it is going to rain, I will assume normal weather conditions, which almost inevitably implies wind. If somebody tells me it is going to be the rainfall of the century (not to mention of all history) I know it implies lots of wind, because no weather system exists on the planet that creates torrential rain witout wind.

In Noah's time glass windows hadn't been invented, so the 'window' that God wanted would actually have been a large opening with shutters. This is not the sort of thing you normally put in an ocean-going vessel, because it could compromise seaworthiness. However it seems that God wasn't concerned about that, which further supports my theory that He expected the sea to be calm.

Circular argumentation: The ark could not handle waves, ERGO it was calm.

In some places it's specific and in others it's general. Hard to believe perhaps, but the Bible is like that.

Yes, it is taken as specific where it suits believers and general where that suits them (and as methaphorical where it contains obvious nonsense ).

Leaving aside the fact that heavy rain can occur without strong wind and high waves, you are assuming that the rain was 'torrential'. However according to my calculations it was merely 'moderate'.

Please show those calculations.

If God can snap His fingers and make it rain for 40 days and 40 nights, it shouldn't be too much trouble for Him to calm the waters as well (at least in the vicinity of the Ark).

In principle, god can do anything, but if he wanted to apply magic, why bother with flooding, ark, and all that jazz?

I disagree. Perhaps it's time to call the MythBusters in on this one.

Various no doubt sincere believers have spent fortunes trying to replicate the ark. How come they have had to resort to steel barges, and such?

Hans

 

[rwguinn]

How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?
That is the summation of the "it floats" argument. ..

 

[catsmate]

Two small words that knock the possibility of an ark actually floating for any length of time.
Hogging and Sagging.
Theres always the question of who was pumping the bilges or had time to feed and muck out all those animals.

You forgot to mention a window. One window on a sealed 500' box. Thousands upon thousands of animals farting 24-7 with only one window to let the air out. An 8 hour road trip with the kids would be a cakewalk compared to this.

The methane was collected and used to power lights, pumps et cetera.

<snip>
Here are the specs for a modern example, the Olympia 5 story floating hotel
Length: 96.35m (214 cubits)
Width: 30.25m (67 cubits)
Height: 24.95m (55 cubits)
Draft: 2.90m (6 cubits)

The Ark was only 60% of the size of the Olympia by volume, so it probably had a proportionally shallower draft.

That's made of steel, not wood, and accommodates 750 human sized animals for a few days, no tens of thousands for weeks.

 

[I Ratant]

How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?
That is the summation of the "it floats" argument. ..

.
I bet all those "intelleshuls" that debated that for real would never have begun with ..... "If there angels...." ..
Lest the Inquistion take an interest!

 

[HansMustermann]

Various no doubt sincere believers have spent fortunes trying to replicate the ark. How come they have had to resort to steel barges, and such?

We don't even have to rely on those nutters, because there actually were a couple of wooden steam boats built, that showed the limits of wood construction even with steel bracing: the Wyoming at 329.5 ft long (about 100m), and the HMS Orlando at 335 ft long. Built by professional engineers, the latter even for the Royal Navy, which was the naval superpower and naval technology powerhouse.

Both had massive problems in high seas.

The Wyoming flexed so much in high seas, that gaps opened between her planks, and it needed powered pumps just to get the water out again. Even so, it eventually sank in a storm, with the loss of all hands.

The Orlando was a similar failure, with the hull opening up at the seams in high seas, and soon getting enough structural damage from that in a single voyage across the Atlantic (which wasn't THAT long with steam power), that it had to be decommissioned. The whole ship class was considered a failure.

Again, both included heavy steel bracing.

So to Roger Ramjets I'd say: how do we know it's not possible to make a 450 ft ship out of wood and have it ocean-worthy? Because actual naval engineers tried, and ran into massive problems around three quarters of that size, even with steel bracing, silly. Just because you don't know history, doesn't mean everyone else doesn't have an argument either.

 

[Chernobyl X1]

The methane was collected and used to power lights, pumps et cetera.

Checkmate!

 

[Roger Ramjets]

and the HMS Orlando at 335 ft long.

"At 5,643 tons displacement, she was certainly a large and impressive looking ship in her day. She was heavily armed..."

"The extreme length of the ship put enormous strains on her hull due to the unusual merging of heavy machinery, and a lengthy wooden hull"​

The real problem with the Orlando wasn't its size, but having to carry enormously heavy steam engines, boilers, guns and armor plating. And this deadweight was positioned amidships, not evenly spread out over the whole vessel.

Wooden fighting ships of this size proved to be impracticable because they required powerful engines and heavy armament, as well as the ability to steam around the globe for years in any weather conditions. This is a completely different role than that of the Ark, which only needed to complete a single unpowered voyage and did not have to plow through rough waters.

how do we know it's not possible to make a 450 ft ship out of wood and have it ocean-worthy? Because actual naval engineers tried, and ran into massive problems around three quarters of that size, even with steel bracing, silly. Just because you don't know history, doesn't mean everyone else doesn't have an argument either.

But nobody has even attempted to make a seaworthy Ark. The fact that at least one ancient ship was built which was almost as long as the Ark shows that it is at least plausible, and nobody has yet produced any calculations to show that it is impossible. Just because something hasn't been done before doesn't prove that it can't be done.

The aircraft was reported to heavy to be safe for regular flights. The unit was more of a flying boat than a plane.

The reason the H-4 Hercules flying boat only made one short flight wasn't a technical issue, but simply that it wasn't economically viable. With the War in the Pacific over it wasn't needed, and the reason for using wood no longer applicable.

Anyway that's beside the point, which is that if Howard Hughes hadn't pushed his project to completion we would now have people saying that a wooden aircraft of that size is impossible - since all even the largest modern aircraft aver built has not been able to achieve that wingspan! The existence of the Spruce Goose shows how bankrupt that argument is.

So why hasn't anybody built a seaworthy replica of the Ark? Not because it's impossible, but simply because it would be an enormous waste of money.

 

[I Ratant]

Build the Ark with the technology of the times!
Nothing else!
And provide life preservers for all the unfortunate crew.

 

[I Ratant]

Carrying on Utnapishtim's efforts!!!!

Straddled this box turtle on Sierra Highway this morning coming back from flying...
Whipped a couple of quick U's and pulled it off the street and with any luck at all, pointed it to a safer direction to wander.
I'm wondering how turtles find each other to do the nasty!
Lots of jumping around to show their physical condition?
Honk sweet nothings across the fields?