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Author Topic:   That boat don't float
greentwiga
Member (Idle past 3417 days)
Posts: 213
From: Santa
Joined: 06-05-2009


Message 196 of 453 (521176)
08-26-2009 11:02 AM


The Boat that floats
Thor Heyerdahl decided to recreate the seagoing crafts of 3,000 BC. There were written records of giant oceangoing reed boats (sailable and steerable.) There were also drawings that he used in his constructions. One book documented his two attempts at papyrus boats RA I and RA II. The second book is about his Berdi reed boat, Tigris (The Tigris Expedition.) These boats could hog and snake to their hearts content because their floatation was due to the reeds, not a hollow space. He found marsh people who still mixed tar and pitch to make waterproof coatings. Tar was too hard and pitch too thin.
A careful reading of the Bible shows that it is a reed boat described. A reed boat would be unsinkable even in a storm, such as the Bible describes.
I have a site that goes into detail.
noahsfloodsite
As a sidelight, the claim that the world was one continent is based on one verse that says the land was divided. Probably a better interpretation is that people parceled out the land at that time, but best to stick to the thread idea, the boat that does float.

Replies to this message:
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Perdition
Member (Idle past 3228 days)
Posts: 1593
From: Wisconsin
Joined: 05-15-2003


Message 197 of 453 (521180)
08-26-2009 11:17 AM
Reply to: Message 196 by greentwiga
08-26-2009 11:02 AM


Re: The Boat that floats
Did Thor Hyerdahl make a reed boat in the dimensions described in the Bible? The problem, if he didn't, is the same for traditional wooden vessels, just scaling up and assuming the same reactions is problematic and in most cases wrong.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 196 by greentwiga, posted 08-26-2009 11:02 AM greentwiga has not replied

  
hooah212002
Member (Idle past 792 days)
Posts: 3193
Joined: 08-12-2009


Message 198 of 453 (521182)
08-26-2009 11:22 AM
Reply to: Message 196 by greentwiga
08-26-2009 11:02 AM


Re: The Boat that floats
Maybe you should research a little my wayward brother.
You will see here that the Ra and the Ra II were but a mere ~40ft long. The longest reed boat known of the time, the MATA RANGI I, was 131ft long, which could barely be considered seaworthy. So, while it might seem like a "hell yeah, I got em now" moment, you can't just, at a minimum, quadruple the size of those boats and assume it will work.
Nice try though.
Here is an excerpt about the Mata Rangi:
The 11-man crew included one Hawaiian, two Tahitians, two Maori, 2 Aymaras, three Rapanui, and one Spaniard Kitn Muoz, the leader of the project. Muoz explained: "With this voyage I would like to demonstrate that many of the parallels that exist between different cultures and people, that today are attributed to artibrary causes, had their reason in the voyages that had crossed seas and oceans in remote times and before the European expeditions of the 15th century." He said, "In the first phase, the ship will travel through all the Polynesian islands such as Mangareva, Tahiti, Bora Bora, Tonga and Fiji reaching finally Australia. There the boat will be taken out of the water and dismantled to permit the reeds to dry, an operation that will take about two months." On May 6th, the voyage began. The boat was scheduled to go first to Pitcairn, with the ultimate stop at Tahiti. On the 8th of May, two stowaways were found: Sergio Tuki Hito and Ricardo Hito had hidden themselves in the hold of the boat. These two brought the number of persons on the boat up to 13, and some noted that it was an unlucky number. By the 12th of May, radio contact was lost. Four days later word came that Mata Rangi was 140 miles northwest of Rapa Nui. They had expected to have traveled 600 miles by that time, and thus declared that they would not stop at Pitcairn but head directly for Mangareva. On the 21st of May, it was reported that, according to a satellite telephone communication received from somewhere in French Polynesia, the boat was still on course, but with a broken mast. The Chilean training ship Esmeralda was sent to offer help. They found her lying somewhat submerged and with water coming in the hole where the mast had been. Then on May 24th the news came that Mata Rangi had split in two and the crew had taken to lifeboats tied to the sinking boat. They were rescued by the Stray Dog, a sailboat that had been visiting Rapa Nui but which left to join in the rescue effort. Mata Rangi was only 185 northwest of Rapa Nui; the boat had been in the water for a mere 20 days.
Note the necessity to stop mid-voyage to allow the reeds to dry out.
Edited by hooah212002, : No reason given.
Edited by hooah212002, : No reason given.
Edited by hooah212002, : added quote from site

This message is a reply to:
 Message 196 by greentwiga, posted 08-26-2009 11:02 AM greentwiga has replied

Replies to this message:
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greentwiga
Member (Idle past 3417 days)
Posts: 213
From: Santa
Joined: 06-05-2009


Message 199 of 453 (521323)
08-27-2009 1:19 AM
Reply to: Message 198 by hooah212002
08-26-2009 11:22 AM


Re: The Boat that floats
That sounds like RA 1 that was not built tightly and had to be abandoned short of reaching America. The second was tied tightly and sailed all the way across the Atlantic. The Tigris was built with new knowledge that the reeds must be picked, as I remember, in December. None were built using the tar and pitch used by the ancients, but the RA II and the Tigris lasted months. One recent reed shipbuilder built the ship with dried out reeds and did not make it half way across the Atlantic. The pieces of tar that were found in ancient shipbuilding sites had grooves for the reeds on one side and barnacles on the other. Our surviving records list two standard boats, the 300 and the 100. We think that they refer to some cargo capacity, but are not sure. What we do know is that we don't know all the secrets of reed shipbuilding that the ancients discovered. We can't say that they couldn't have built large boats until we learn more. For example, what type of mast did the Mata Rangi employ? Thor Heyerdahl stressed that a single pole mast like wooden ships use would destroy the ship. It is so easy to make the mistakes that the ancients learned to avoid.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 198 by hooah212002, posted 08-26-2009 11:22 AM hooah212002 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 200 by pandion, posted 08-27-2009 1:25 AM greentwiga has not replied
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pandion
Member (Idle past 2991 days)
Posts: 166
From: Houston
Joined: 04-06-2009


Message 200 of 453 (521324)
08-27-2009 1:25 AM
Reply to: Message 199 by greentwiga
08-27-2009 1:19 AM


Re: The Boat that floats
How is this relevant to Noah, the ark, and the tens of thousands of animal pairs that he supposedly loaded, fed, watered, and mucked through a 40 day storm and a year afloat?
Really. Be specific.

This message is a reply to:
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Percy
Member
Posts: 22359
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 4.8


Message 201 of 453 (521327)
08-27-2009 1:56 AM
Reply to: Message 199 by greentwiga
08-27-2009 1:19 AM


Re: The Boat that floats
greentwiga writes:
We can't say that they couldn't have built large boats until we learn more.
We can't say they weren't visited by men from Mars, either.
There's a great deal of evidence that the maximum size of wooden/reed/balsa/etc boats is limited by the nature and strength of the materials, and that the problems are made far worse if there are significant cargo carrying requirements.
There is no evidence of any boat even vaguely like the ark ever existing.
It is so easy to make the mistakes that the ancients learned to avoid.
How many trial runs did Noah make?
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
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Peg
Member (Idle past 4920 days)
Posts: 2703
From: melbourne, australia
Joined: 11-22-2008


Message 202 of 453 (521350)
08-27-2009 6:31 AM
Reply to: Message 172 by pandion
08-25-2009 12:14 PM


Re: Anything Goes
pandion writes:
Nonsense. According to Strong's "gopher" comes from an unused root that probably meant "to house in." Strong's defines the word as "the wood from which the ark was made, meaning and exact type unknown."
by saying nonsense do you mean that you've looked at other sources besides 'Strongs'?
Should I take it that this means Strongs is the authority on hebrew words?
If strongs know so much, how come they dont know that there is no such thing as an 'unused' root word....what do they think a 'root' word is???
pandion writes:
You said that we know what gopher wood is, not that we guess what it may have been. Further, "resinous wood" doesn't tell us what wood it was.
You see, we just don't know. It's a myth anyway.
well what i meant was that if gopher comes from the root of the same word for 'tar', then it means they are related. There is no 'if' as in no one is really sure... We know it comes from this root because hebrew word structure is built on root words. There is a relationship between the meanings of words when they come from the same root.
this is why there are so many different words that can be used for one meaning.
for example, the words labor, service, servant, serve, slaveall these words come from the root word 'WORK'
in hebrew, the root is based on 3 consonants. As you add or rearrange the vowels, the word changes...but the meaning always revolves around the root word.
In the case of 'gopher' the root meaning is 'tar' and therefore the tree was a tree with the properties of 'tar'...this is a resin therefore the tree is resinous...the tree most in supply in the middle east is the cypress tree but of course there is no way to know for sure if it means a cypress tree, perhaps there is another sort of resinous tree avail that we dont know about.

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Peg
Member (Idle past 4920 days)
Posts: 2703
From: melbourne, australia
Joined: 11-22-2008


Message 203 of 453 (521353)
08-27-2009 6:56 AM
Reply to: Message 167 by Theodoric
08-25-2009 9:39 AM


Re: Limits of Wood
Theodoric writes:
Do you accept there was a bronze age, followed by an iron age?
How do you know what level metal forging was in Noah's day? If he knew advance metallurgy why did he not pass it on?
no one knows to what level but the bible says in Gen 4:22 that in the 7th generation after Adam’s creation a man named Tubal-cain was the forger of every sort of tool of copper and iron. Perhaps before this time they were only using stone implements, but within his lifetime copper and iron were being forged. This does not necessarily mean that everybody was using this technology, but obviously this man had begun to use it. And seeing it took noah 40 years to built the ark, its possible that he had time to learn some of the art himself.
Theodoric writes:
Where the heck are the remnants of this magic boat? We should be able to find the metal remnants. Some sort of copper alloy would be good metal to use on his boat. Copper alloys are much more resistant to weather than iron and some extent even steel. Where is the evidence?
my guess is that the ark is well hidden under tons of ice and snow on the top of Mount Ararat where it was said to come to a rest. Personally, i dont think anyone will ever find it for the reason that God does not compel anyone to believe in him and if it was found then im sure lots of people would feel compelled to believe.

This message is a reply to:
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Peg
Member (Idle past 4920 days)
Posts: 2703
From: melbourne, australia
Joined: 11-22-2008


Message 204 of 453 (521355)
08-27-2009 7:16 AM
Reply to: Message 176 by hooah212002
08-25-2009 1:56 PM


Re: An Observation
hooah212002 writes:
In the IT field, it's called "job security". Noah was the only one sacred enough to be privy to this newfangled way of shipbuilding.
but noah didnt built a boat, he built a box with compartments.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 176 by hooah212002, posted 08-25-2009 1:56 PM hooah212002 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 208 by hooah212002, posted 08-27-2009 9:41 AM Peg has not replied

  
Peg
Member (Idle past 4920 days)
Posts: 2703
From: melbourne, australia
Joined: 11-22-2008


Message 205 of 453 (521356)
08-27-2009 7:18 AM
Reply to: Message 179 by iano
08-25-2009 6:34 PM


Re: An Observation
iano writes:
You got any technical objections to a big raft?
what sort of raft?
i hope you dont mean one like the one in the movie 'shipwreched' with Tom Hanks. lol

This message is a reply to:
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Peg
Member (Idle past 4920 days)
Posts: 2703
From: melbourne, australia
Joined: 11-22-2008


Message 206 of 453 (521358)
08-27-2009 7:34 AM
Reply to: Message 171 by Percy
08-25-2009 10:51 AM


Re: An Observation
Percy writes:
This is why this thread is full of incredible claims about the technology and shipbuilding skills of ancient Middle Eastern desert traders. It isn't impossible that Noah had access to shipbuilding technologies we're unaware of today, or that he somehow developed them himself (as well as anticipating the need for them), and this is all that creationists require to be satisfied.
thats because we are an open minded bunch
which is kind of odd seeing its science that has made the impossible, possible, yet the scientific community are the ones least likely to believe in the seemingly impossible
We've all heard the saying 'Where there is a will there is a way!' There is a reason why God said at Genesis 11:6 "there is nothing that they may have in mind to do that will be unattainable for them"
here we are in todays world, watching live footage from all over the world streamed to our televisions, travelling to the moon finding new worlds, curing disease, prolonging life, cloning life, performing all sorts of amazing surgery, mapping genes, assisting infertile couples to have a baby and yet many are still skeptical about a man who built a box that could float.
:shock:

This message is a reply to:
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greyseal
Member (Idle past 3852 days)
Posts: 464
Joined: 08-11-2009


Message 207 of 453 (521368)
08-27-2009 8:22 AM
Reply to: Message 206 by Peg
08-27-2009 7:34 AM


Re: An Observation
peg writes:
Percy writes:
This is why this thread is full of incredible claims about the technology and shipbuilding skills of ancient Middle Eastern desert traders. It isn't impossible that Noah had access to shipbuilding technologies we're unaware of today, or that he somehow developed them himself (as well as anticipating the need for them), and this is all that creationists require to be satisfied.
thats because we are an open minded bunch
The idea, of course, is to be open minded without being SO open minded your brain falls out...
Fact is (and anecdotal hand-waving aside, the real engineers have the facts) wooden and especially reed boats that large are impossible to keep afloat unless you say "godidit" which totally negates the whole need to even HAVE a boat
peg writes:
which is kind of odd seeing its science that has made the impossible, possible, yet the scientific community are the ones least likely to believe in the seemingly impossible
We've all heard the saying 'Where there is a will there is a way!' There is a reason why God said at Genesis 11:6 "there is nothing that they may have in mind to do that will be unattainable for them"
here we are in todays world, watching live footage from all over the world streamed to our televisions, travelling to the moon finding new worlds, curing disease, prolonging life, cloning life, performing all sorts of amazing surgery, mapping genes, assisting infertile couples to have a baby and yet many are still skeptical about a man who built a box that could float.
:shock:
We're skeptical about a wooden boat with known dimensions exceeding the known, tested tolerances of wooden boats built thousands of years later with technology thousands of years more advanced and techniques not only unknown but undrempt of by illiterate goat-herders from the stone age.
We're also mighty skeptical about it managing to hold 7 of ALL clean types of animal and 2 of every other type of animal from the face of the entire planet, without ventilation and pumps, without running out of food and with a crew of a dozen or less. for a year.
WTF is this boat, a tardis? If you want to say Noah built a tardis out of reeds, quite frankly, it's less unbelievable.
As for the rest of your post, if I didn't know better, I'd say you were one of us.
Scientists make what was before impossible, possible. And they do it daily.
Stone-age goat herders do not.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 206 by Peg, posted 08-27-2009 7:34 AM Peg has not replied

  
hooah212002
Member (Idle past 792 days)
Posts: 3193
Joined: 08-12-2009


Message 208 of 453 (521379)
08-27-2009 9:41 AM
Reply to: Message 204 by Peg
08-27-2009 7:16 AM


Re: An Observation
Apparently, he didn't. He couldn't have. As has been shown here, in this thread. However, you will keep right on believing that he did. That's fine with me, just keep it away from my kids' school.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 204 by Peg, posted 08-27-2009 7:16 AM Peg has not replied

  
hooah212002
Member (Idle past 792 days)
Posts: 3193
Joined: 08-12-2009


Message 209 of 453 (521382)
08-27-2009 9:45 AM
Reply to: Message 199 by greentwiga
08-27-2009 1:19 AM


Re: The Boat that floats
Do you not see here that all these boats, save for the one that :gasp: broke up and sunk mid voyage, were a good deal less than 100 feet? Each with a crew of 8-11. This in no way compares to a giant monstrosity of a floating box, housing thousands of animals, many of which are HOOVED, feed, AND the 8 man crew.
If you still think it feasible that the Ark be built of reed OR a balsa type material, you are further gone than I'd suspected.
Edited by hooah212002, : No reason given.
Edited by hooah212002, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 199 by greentwiga, posted 08-27-2009 1:19 AM greentwiga has not replied

  
slevesque
Member (Idle past 4631 days)
Posts: 1456
Joined: 05-14-2009


Message 210 of 453 (521464)
08-27-2009 2:32 PM


You gotta love that this discussion is still going at it, when in fact the answer is all in my message no74. The link I had posted (Safety investigation of Noah's Ark in a seaway - creation.com) was a complete analysis of the feasability of the ark done by 9 persons who are all on the staff of the Korea Research Institute of Ships and Engineering. The analysis they did for the ark with shipbuilding computer programs used around the world showed that the ark's dimensions even made it optimal in all three aspects studied: structural safety, overturning stability, and seakeeping quality.
This fact alone puts doubt on the theory that the flood account is made-up for the most part. If this is so, why would the numbers assigned to the dimensions of the Ark make it optimal in all those essential aspects of a boat ?
Furthermore, I could argue that the initial case of the OP is flawed, in that he uses examples from the Victorian shipbuilders of the early 20th century who were unable to make wooden ships beyond 300-350 feet in length without them leaking, and that this involved that wooden ships cannot physically exceed this length. This reasoning implies that these shipbuilders, with centuries of knowledge in shipbuilding, had developped a close-to-optimal technique in shipbuilding, and that even with all there competence in the domain they could not exceed the length of 300 feet without leaking badly.
However, a quick look at the boats they made reveals some less-then-optimal features, even for the layman's eye. You just have to look at the masts, which provide an incredible lever arm for the wind, which makes the boat vulnerable.
Other techniques are also available in shipbuidling, the french 'monocoque' technique being one of them. Also, a wooden boat could be greatly reinforced using mortice and tenon joints, a technique which is vary labour-intensive and so was largely abandonned by shipbuilders.
Also interesting is the fact computer modeling of such scaled-up ships on the Victorian line would have collapsed. Why then ignore computer modelling that showed that the Ark would have been seaworthy ?
For my part, I find the issue that 'wooden ships cannot exceed 300 feet because of the physical properties of wood' to be pretty much settled, and I am anxious to see the many responses that my post will generate. All in all, I would encourage my fellow christians to do some actual reading before posting some none-sense such as 'Noah could have built a raft'. I may seem harsh, but believe me when I say that I say this with love to my brothers in Christ.
I would equally encourage my fellow Flood-skeptics to read the 1994 paper with an open-mind, and I sincerely hope that you will be able to admit that this line of reasoning against the feasability of biblical account of the flood is flawed.
Edited by slevesque, : No reason given.

Replies to this message:
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