So, just
for the record, I am merely a person who got a degree in mechanical eng back in
1970, but only worked a few years in
that field, and a person who built two wooden Row boats, one flat bottomed and
one deep "V." Thus I am no
authority on wooden ships except for a lot of study back in the day when I
built my own. And next, I didn't ask for
this discussion, I was merely responding to the questions from a couple of my
friends. But since it is, in fact a
public blog, I have no animosity to the response from AIG, In fact, I am rather honored. I must have hit
a nerve for them to waste their time on some anonymous blogger.
Even more importantly, the response was the
impetus for looking into this matter once again, and more comprehensively. The ultimate answer is conclusive. The maximum length of wooden ships was
reached at about 350 feet- wood, no matter how you cut it, has definite, defined, limitations, 100 feet short of the supposed Ark.
I have visited the Creation museum ( I can prove this with plenty of evidence) and their authentic depiction of a scaled down cross section of the Ark, which has no metal in it. It is flat bottom and braced with timbers of the post and beam design. The sides are of Carvel design. It is well understood that the limitations of wood and ancient style of architecture limit the length of a wooden boat to some length under 350 feet that were achieved with 19th and 20th century technology.
Part two
will show this to be consistent with the historical evidence.
Red = my original post
Black= Tim Lovett's response
Green= My rebuttal
I said
(Frog)Anyone who has ever built a wooden boat of any length knows very well
that they are impossible to seal 100%.
He wrote
(Tim)That’s a sweeping statement. Planked wooden boats are prone to leakage if
they flex with slip, but a rigid
vessel (e.g., cold molded) can be sealed and made watertight. The Bible
specifies that Noah used pitch, just like wooden ships from ancient times to
the 1900s. In addition, Noah was instructed to use pitch inside as well as out,
which may have been to stabilize the wood over a long construction period.
(Frog)Preposterous.
Pitch is pliable, and nothing like materials that are used for cold molding,
such as fiber glass or laminations which require modern epoxies. Racking and deflection would open the pitch
joints in short order.
There is
nothing in scripture or in reality that suggest the Ark was cold molded or
rigid.
The wood
will also expand and contract, further opening the thousands of seams/ joints.
Wood
expands when wet and contracts when dry. If a pitched joint allowed water to
seep into the wood, the resulting expansion of the planks acts to seal the
faulty joint tight.
Just a
moment ago you were trying to make a case for a rigid 'cold molded'
vessel. Cold molding would not allow
water to penetrate into the wood. Which
way is it?
Also,
why is it that no wooden ships over 350 feet were never built? It's because even at 350 feet iron and steel
reinforcement was needed. The practical
length of wooden ships had been reached.
The expansion of moist wood counteracts the opening of seams and
joints, and the wood will not contract again until the Ark is sitting on dry
ground, after it’s all over.
Deflection
of the timbers from longitudinal torque would soon wear the pitch from the
seams as they "twisted and buckled" as happened on the Wyoming.
Its not a matter of if she'll leak, its just a matter of
how much.
That scheme worked fairly well in small
vessels only due to less deflection.
"….
the ancient Greeks seemed quite capable of taking their triremes in and out of
the water—drawing them up onto the beach to prevent water logging and keep them
lightweight."
Indeed,
and when they were out of water they were undergoing repairs of all kinds. They
were tiny in relation to the size of the supposed Ark and within the limits of
reliable wooden construction.
The
Ark started out on dry land. With enough water pouring in from “somewhere,” to
cover the earth in 40 days indicates ridiculously large waves/ currents/ swells
further complicating the idea of a large wooden vessel. After all, creationists
claim that all the billions of metric tons of sediment in the geologic column
were laid down by the flood, which would take extraordinary flows of water.
That
“somewhere” water is ocean water where much originated in the springs of the
great deep. AiG favors the tectonic plate Flood model as a flood mechanism, as
you can read yourself on the AiG website !
According to
Dr.
John Baumgardner—a world expert in computer
modeling of the earth’s mantle and leading proponent of the tectonic mechanism
for the global Flood—the initial inundation would be very severe, subsiding
somewhat by the time the waters reached a higher altitude Ark launch site. This
would explain why all other ships were destroyed, since they started at sea
level.
So, you
are saying that the continents all ripped across the open ocean and the entire
geologic column was laid down by the time the water got up to the level at
which the Ark was built? And just where
do you find this in scripture? Again,
you are asking the bible to do something it was never intended to do and you
proceed with wild speculation. And
Baumgarardner's make believe stories have been debunked with concrete evidence
and valid science over and over again. Shoehorning more
myths into bible myths is absurd.
Once afloat, the average depth of water of almost two miles
(three km)
3 would have shielded the Ark from tectonic activity.
Deep water is safe in a tsunami. The Ark had to survive the ocean surface,
not the massive sediment flows at and near the seabed.
So, the
ocean was calm on top with trillions of tons of stuff moving around on the sea
floor?
What
would be driving those flows? And, it is
wind that produces high seas and neither one of us is going to find out from
the bible if there was wind or what the windspeed was. There is no evidence for all of this
crackpottery.
[Paragraph
omitted by invoking Gish Gallop with nothing pertaining to the subject at hand]
Comparing the Ark to Other Ships
(Frog)The
largest “wooden” ship ever built, that actually sailed was the Pretoria at 103
m long (338 ft.) and 13.4 m wide (44 ft.) and 23 feet high. She was a barge
built for use on the Great Lakes.
(Tim)A Great
Lakes barge? So you conveniently cherry-picked a barge that lasted 5 years
while a 1909 wooden schooner of similar length (Wyoming)
lasted 15 years, and paid for itself many times over.
(Frog)Actually,
I didn't cherry pick anything. I merely
grabbed a couple examples, and as you will go on to prove, none of them were
seaworthy enough to last a year on the ocean without major and constant
repairs, constant pumping, and iron/steel reinforcement.
The
Wyoming is a perfect example.
"Because of her length and wood construction, Wyoming flexed in heavy seas, which would cause the long
planks to twist and buckle, thereby allowing sea water to intrude into the
hold.
Wyoming had
to use pumps to keep her hold relatively free of water. In March 1924, she
foundered in heavy seas and sank with the loss of all hands."
And again, the Wyoming was much smaller than
the supposed Ark.
Another ship of Pretorian length was the 1853
clipper Great Republic, which
survived a fire and lasted another nineteen years.
The Great Republic was, of course, like all the others, much smaller
than the Ark. She was reinforced with 336 1/2 tons of iron and 56 tons of copper. She was Launched on October 4, 1853- And burned
on On December 27, 1853. She was salvaged and rebuilt as a much smaller iron
reinforced vessel. Both Great Republics
were much smaller than the supposed Ark.
(Tim)These ships were commercial workhorses built
as quickly as possible and with an expected working life of only 12–15 years or
as little as ten. Yes, they leaked excessively as the hull worked loose because
the stiffness of the hull depended almost entirely on the tightness of
caulking. Even placing two pins in each plank gave little improvement.
(Frog)Isn't
most anything built as fast as possible?
They were still built to the architects specifications. And, the "stiffness of the hull depended
on the tightness of the caulking"??
The Ark had only pitch, which is a very poor caulking. Also, caulking does nothing to increase
stiffness, it only plugs the cracks. You
are getting way out there, lil buddy.
I am
very surprised that an "expert" would claim that "the stiffness
of the hull depended almost entirely on the caulking." That is not true at all.
(Frog) She
had a wooden frame but it was reinforced with Keelson Plates, chords, arches
and was diagonally strapped with steel. It leaked so badly that it took 2
dedicated engines to keep the water pumped out of the interior. She leaked like
a sieve.
(Tim) Steel
(well, iron actually) is not the only way to brace a wooden ship. House framing
needs bracing, too, and this can be done either by steel straps or plywood
sheathing.
Yes, and
Noah had neither.
Now
let’s look at the carvel planking technique that dominated wooden shipbuilding
in the last few centuries. The method was simple and quick, but prone to
racking because the parallel planks were “nailed” to parallel frames. The
only bracing was the caulking itself, so a new ship didn’t stay a “tight ship”
for very long.
I don't
know what you're on, lil buddy, but you're on it out in left field. Caulking has nothing to do with bracing.
Caulking on wooden vessels uses fibers of cotton and
hemp fiber soaked in pine tar to seal the cracks. Caulking was driven into the
seams between planks. Caulking addd no structural strength.
Larger ships were subject to higher forces,
which sped up the loosening of the caulked planks, leading to reinforcement by
means of iron straps. These diagonal straps certainly helped improve a bad
design and gave the single layer of carvel planking some much-needed shear
resistance. But the steel straps were pinned (bolted) to softer wooden frames,
a considerable stress concentration especially at the ends of the straps.
This led
to the next patch-up: steel plates at the top and bottom to secure the diagonal
bracing. Okay, that kept the hull sides intact, but now the problem was
transmitted to the top deck.
Yes, but
what is your point? Noah had no iron
bracing.
Later, during World War I, steel was scarce and wooden
supply ships were being built in a hurry.
11 Naval architects revisiting the carvel hull bending
problem made big increases to keelson depth and upper deck reinforcement (using
clamp and shelf strakes). One design aimed to “produce a boat which will
have strength equivalent to that of a steel hull without using excessive
amounts of timber.” It had a double layer of diagonal planking under the
standard planks. That’s not a carvel hull, that’s cold molded, just like the
wooden minesweepers built in the 1990s.
The Avenger-class wooden minesweepers that you
are referring to was commissioned in
1994. The 224-foot hull was framed in wood and planked with diagonal layers of
fir, then covered with fiberglass.
Noah did
not have fiber glass, nor did he have the technology to make thin strips of
underlayment and no glue to make them stiff.
As far as I know the longest composite/ fiber glass boat ever built was
the Mirabella V at 247 ft. You're still
over a hundred feet from what you need to float the Ark.
So the
short-comings of a carvel hull are not easily corrected. The better way is to
use a planking method with inherent shear strength, akin to a house frame
braced with plywood instead of clapboards (also called lap siding or
weatherboards).
The
Pretoria was built by James Davidson, the preeminent marine engineer of his
day. She was launched in July of 1900 and sank in rough weather on lake
Michigan in September of 1905, partly due to the Pony Engines failing and the
ship filled with water.
Only
steel reinforcement allowed the Pretoria to sail, but in 1869 Britain built the
largest true wooden ship, the HMS Orlando. She was 335 feet long. She suffered
from the strain of her length creating massive leaks and was scrapped in 1871
after a few short voyages.
Sorry, there’s an HMS
Orlando (1858-1871)
made of wood
with iron
bracing or a later HMS
Orlando (1886-1905)
with an iron hull. Read the PBS website.
16 So I am helping you with your argument, even the
1858
Orlando had iron bracing (although you did try to cut its
lifespan down from 13 years to 2).
Yes,
indeed you are helping prove the point that no wooden ship the size of the ark
has ever sailed because even smaller ships could not be made seaworthy or
reliable.
the construction and use histories of these ships (at only 335 feet) show that they were
already pushing or had exceeded the practical limits for that size of wooden
ships.
It is easy to cherry-pick
poor
performers—
Pretoria and
Orlando—because
these ships were based on carvel hull anyway, built like a “
bundle of reeds.” There are much better ways to build a wooden ship.
Whaaaa????? carvel planking is a method of boat building where planks are fastened edge to edge, gaining support from the frame and
forming a smooth surface. I see no
similarity at all between that and a
'bundle of reeds.' And there is no
reason to believe that the Ark did not use Carvel planking, or perhaps a
Lapstrake, where the edges of hull planks overlap.
Another
consideration is that the modern wooden ships were far more stable in moderate
to high seas due to the fact that they were Keel ships by construction and they
were powered, and ‘V’ shaped, which enabled them to “cut through” the waves.
Since
you mention “Keel ships” and “V” shapes, you might be referring to deadrise—a
“V” shaped bottom—something that has been around since antiquity. Most modern
ships have a flat bottom (no deadrise) amidships, which is stable too and
increases carrying capacity.
Or perhaps by “V” shaped you mean a pointed bow in
conjunction with a prominent keel, improving directional stability when the
vessel is making way. Indeed, that can be read on the AiG
website too.
There is
no point in discussing modern ships. By
a keel I mean a deadrise which slops up from a keel which increases the
strength of the hull, by triangulation, and for which there is no evidence in
scripture that the ark was built upon a laid keel. I explained this in my next
paragraph.
The
Ark, being a straight sided box would have been at the mercy of even moderate
or light seas with waves and wind smashing against the straight sides.
Keel
ships, with their attendant ribs are intrinsically stronger and triangulated
frame rather than a box ship with corners that would increase longitudinal
torque.
That is
pure guesswork. There is no evidence
that the Ark was built in that manner. Sometimes one can think so far out side
the box that no box remains, and it is easy use "think outside the
box" as a euphemism for wild
guessing.
It is
also interesting to note that Noah had no engines to pump out water from the
interior of the ark and with eight people aboard, it is absurd to think that
they bailed it by hand.
Yes, I
agree that your idea of hand-bailing is absurd. Power for winching or pumping
can come from other sources, like wave motion, wind, or animal draft power.
So now, in addition to the on-board wastewater treatment system with
wooden anaerobic sludge digestion tanks and bamboo piping, (mentioned in a
recent AIG article) we're going to have bronze-age pumps powered by windmills
and having the resident animals pacing on treadmills or around a post (btw,
aren't all the animals supposed to be infants or in hibernation or something?)?
you are doing an extraordinary job showing the absurdity of this all on your
own. It's becoming a farcical cross between The Flintstones and Gilligan's
Island at every
succeeding step that you take.You are trying to make the bible something that
it was never meant to be.
Finally,
Johan Huibers from the Netherlands has built a 1/2 scale ark.
No, he also built a full-scale Ark.
Initially he
built a half-scale Ark (in 2007)—you can read about it
on
the AiG website. In 2012, Johan completed his
second Ark, this time at full-scale. You can read about it on the AiG website
News to Note, December 15, 2012 and Noah’s Ark in the Netherlands!
Yeah and
he planned to sail it around the world, but it too was unseaworthy! :)
(Tim) Come
back next week for my response to the claim that Noah’s Ark was unseaworthy as
I finish my analysis of this critique of our article.
With
regards,
Tim
____________________________________________________________________________
Thanks for trying, Tim.
Are wooden ships
reliable? Yes, to a degree. Yet as wooden ships approached the length of
350 feet the point was reached where they were not reliable even with 19th
century technology
My original post was
merely to show the concept of why wooden ships the size of the Ark were never
feasible or seaworthy and how all the efforts of nineteenth and twentieth
century shipbuilders at the height of their skills could not make an all-wooden
ship the size of the Ark that would float for any extended length of time.
I will also maintain
that if anyone ever really thought they could build an Ark sized wooden vessel
and go out on the ocean for one year with 8 people and all those animals, they
would have done it by now.
And if you really have
any balls, then go ahead and build one and prove your commitment.
All of the history of
ship building shows perfectly well that once the length of 350 feet was
approached, the integrity of the vessel vanishes. That became clear once ships of 350 feet were
attempted. Even with iron and steel
bracing those ships leaked terribly and needed constant pumping out of water
and maintenance.
History and experience
also shows very well that no wooden ship of 450 feet in length hass ever even
been attempted due to the failures of much smaller vessels, and it is clear
that the materials and technology of the 23rd century BCE could not have supported
such a vessel.
The only conclusion
that can be arrived at is that the bible story of Noah's Ark is merely a story
from someone's imagination in an attempt to make the story bigger than
life. It shows that the ancients had no
clue as to the limits of building an all wooden ship.
Is there a moral to
the story? Sure, as there are to many
bible stories, told as we would expect from ancient men with no understanding
of sociology and the other sciences.
But to be sure, the
Ark story probably had a seed of truth about some local flood in ancient times,
but the idea that a 450 all wooden ship sailed the oceans for an entire year is
preposterous beyond description.
Respectfully
submitted,
Froggie
