Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 63 (9161 total)
0 online now:
Newest Member: popoi
Post Volume: Total: 915,585 Year: 2,842/9,624 Month: 687/1,588 Week: 93/229 Day: 4/61 Hour: 0/0


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   Creationist experiment to prove the possibility of Noah's ark
pandion
Member (Idle past 2991 days)
Posts: 166
From: Houston
Joined: 04-06-2009


Message 15 of 115 (506107)
04-22-2009 4:24 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Taz
08-02-2008 2:42 AM


That Boat Don't Float
Here's a little something I wrote some years ago.
In 1909 the schooner Wyoming was launched from the Percy & Small shipyard in Bath, Maine. She was state-of-the art in wooden hulled shipbuilding. She was a six masted schooner and, at 329 ft., the longest ship with an all wood keel and hull ever built. She was the last of nine wooden hulled, six-masted schooners built between 1900 and 1909, and one of seven built by Percy & Small. All were 300 ft. or more in length. They were all state-of-the art.
The Wyoming had 90 steel cross-braces. Even while she was yet on the drawing boards the marine engineers who designed and built her knew from experience with shorter ships that the length of the Wyoming would exceed the structural limits of wood. For this reason they attempted to defeat, or at least support, the laws of physics and the principles of marine engineering with steel. It was to no avail. Not even the steel bracing could prevent the flexing and twisting that resulted in the separation of the hull planking. The Wyoming required constant pumping, as did her sister ships. The Wyoming leaked from the day she hit the water until the day, 14 years later, when she foundered and broke up off of Monomoy Island while riding out a storm at anchor.
It is said that she could be seen to snake (movement of the bow and stern from side to side in relation to the midships) and hog (movement of the bow and stern up and down in relation to the midships) while underway. The action of the waves, in even calm seas, caused the planking to be sprung beyond the capabilities of any caulking that could be devised. The Wyoming and her sisters were used, for the most part, for short, close-in coastal hauls, generally in sight of land. At the first sign if inclement weather, they could run for port. The Wyoming served for several years as a coal hauler, as did several of her sisters.
I have always had a great love for windjammers. I have some very expensive books that deal with the minutia of their construction and for years my hobby was to build full rigged wooden models. I spent hours climbing over the decks of the U.S.S. Constitution in Charleston Navy Yard, admiring her construction. The Wyoming must have been a beautiful vessel. But she was a beautiful anachronism. At about 300 ft. the structural capabilities of wood were exceeded beyond the abilities of engineering and design to remedy
Few other ships of this size were built of wood. One exception was the four-masted medium clipper barque, Great Republic built in 1853. She is sometimes reported as the longest wooden ship ever build with a length of 334 feet, but more usually it is claimed that she was 325 feet. The Great Republic also had 90 steel cross braces, 4 inches wide, 1 inch thick, and 36 feet long. Nevertheless, she sprung her hull in a storm off of Bermuda. She was abandoned when the water in the hold reached 15 feet.
And yet, creationists want me to believe that a 450 ft. (minimum) vessel of ALL wood construction was able to withstand a storm of 40 days and then remain at sea for almost a year, manned by only eight people, without the efficient pumps of the turn of the century, caulked with nothing more than "pitch inside and out". Not to mention the overwhelming necessity of the limited crew to feed and water thousands of animals and to muck out thousands of pens (and then carry the result of the mucking up two decks in order to throw it overboard). When was there time for pumping (24 hours a day if the above is any indication) and the constant recaulking in a futile attempt to stem the flow.
You may perceive this as an argument from incredulity similar to those that are so typical of creationists, but I just can't believe such a fairy tale. Experience with real wooden ships sailing in real oceans indicates that Noah's ark would not have survived many days of the 40 day storm.
My opinion of Noah's ark is that that boat don't float.
One might also consider the air quality three decks down in that big wooden box. Consider the fumes given off by the pitch that covered the inside of the hull - that black, oozy, sticky stuff used for caulking. There would also be the fumes given off from the breakdown of all of that urine that had soaked into the wood decks. Also, the methane produced from the various digestive tracks. Not only would the air have been unpleasant, it would have been lethal.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Taz, posted 08-02-2008 2:42 AM Taz has seen this message but not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 16 by Perdition, posted 04-22-2009 4:37 PM pandion has replied

  
pandion
Member (Idle past 2991 days)
Posts: 166
From: Houston
Joined: 04-06-2009


Message 17 of 115 (506123)
04-22-2009 7:38 PM
Reply to: Message 16 by Perdition
04-22-2009 4:37 PM


Re: That Boat Don't Float
Perdition writes:
Well obviously, Jesus, who has always been alive in some form or another, brought Moses and his family advanced air filtration technology from the 24th century, along with wood from the fabled Irontree of Omicron Persei 8.
And Moses used the wood to build a bridge across the Red Sea?
Actually, there is a big misunderstanding about the wood that Noah used. You will frequently see that it is called gopher wood, and no one has any idea what gopher wood is. What actually happened was that Noah said to his sons, "You gofer wood, I'll wait here." That became gopher wood in the Bible.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 16 by Perdition, posted 04-22-2009 4:37 PM Perdition has not replied

  
pandion
Member (Idle past 2991 days)
Posts: 166
From: Houston
Joined: 04-06-2009


Message 25 of 115 (507926)
05-09-2009 2:39 AM


Well, it seems quite clear the all 36 recognized species of cat "evolved" in a few hundred years from the pair of the "cat kind." How is that a problem? Lions, tigers, ocelots, pumas, leopards, cheetahs, jaguars, and your lap cat are all descended from a single pair of the "cat kind". And they were able to cross oceans in their migration from Mt. Ararat. And all of this took place in a few years. And yet, evolution exemplified by the diversification of a single lineage into many is not possible.
Of course, the same thing happened with the canids - dogs. Wolves, jackles, dingos, coyotes, foxes, etc. But evolution is impossible.

Replies to this message:
 Message 26 by Doubletime, posted 05-09-2009 3:11 AM pandion has not replied

  
pandion
Member (Idle past 2991 days)
Posts: 166
From: Houston
Joined: 04-06-2009


Message 88 of 115 (550021)
03-12-2010 1:30 AM
Reply to: Message 76 by hooah212002
03-10-2010 7:24 PM


Been there, done that

This message is a reply to:
 Message 76 by hooah212002, posted 03-10-2010 7:24 PM hooah212002 has seen this message but not replied

  
Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024