Original subtitles

And is still used today.

A long stick, and you throw it into the ocean,

And you think it's gonna surf the waves,

It's not gonna do that.

It's gonna turn sideways, and it'll founder.

So what we did is we talked to a series of nautical engineers.

And the thing that's interesting about the ark is it really

Has kind of the same dimensions on a freighter --

You know, like an oil freighter, tanker, that kind of thing.

Manthorne: The vessel would have to be extremely,

Heavily kneed-out to support the stresses and strains

And support the decks.

Knees are bent members --

Usually growed roots from the root of tree,

That is used to put in the corners as bracings in vessels,

The truth is, if you take a stick --

Narrator: So our ark will need to be shaped like an oil freighter

And have strong knees.

Our friends in kentucky also figured out

How to keep our ship from getting soggy.

One of the nature of wooden ships is that water sinks

Into the wood, and it swells the wood.

And then it sort of creates a seal

Between all of the parts that are in there.

And the ancient ships that -- that we studied

Basically were made out of a lot of small pieces

That were kind of chinked together in a way,

Um, like a little puzzle.

And then there are multiple layers,

Is that they won't corrode.

And a half-bent has a big pole called a lodge pole,

And then you have half the slice of bread

Built on that particular pole.

And so then you put two half-bents together

And you have slices of bread, if you like.

Narrator: But how are we going to hold all those slices together

To make a watertight vessel?

This is a wooden tree-nail, or trunnel.

It's made of black locust.

Doesn't rot in 200 years or so, so that's why it's used.

And this is what holds this vessel together,

Is all these tree-nails.

Narrator: The other advantage of using trunnels

And so you've got the ability of the hull of the ship

So, electrolysis is very damaging to vessels,

And usually is the -- the ending of the vessel,

Is when all the fasteners are eaten up off by electrolysis.

It's a transfer of the metal.

It deteriorates the metal and causes it to become

Very small in the wood, and finally weaken

Till the vessel is fatigued and breaks up.

Narrator: We figure it's going to take at least

10,000 of those trunnels to get the job done.

But how about our design?

[ thunder rumbles ]

If our boat is going to set sail,

It has to be able to handle the waves.

Because of inbreeding

So if you take dogs -- dingoes, wolves, coyotes,

Jackals, foxes, domestic varieties --

We would say, okay, you've got different species.

But you only needed two dogs on the ark

Because they were all in the one dog kind.

Narrator: But many in the scientific community disagree

With this reasoning.

Well, one thing that wasn't well-known

When the bible was written, I suppose,

Was that there's a lot of genetic variability

Within species, and that helps species survive.

When species are put into very, very small populations,

Those populations often are not very viable

You can have different species within one kind.

And of genetic effects that accumulate in the population,

And that make them sick and eventually they die out.

So the idea that you could just take two of each kind

And make them breed and that would make up for the whole,

And that would be a viable population, is untrue.

That would not happen.

That would only be possible for very, very, very few species.

♪

Narrator: We know one thing for sure --

Whatever animals we do bring aboard

Need to be housed and cared for.

The ark in kentucky takes this into account,

But the designers had to play it by ear.

Now we need to figure out how we're going to get two of

To be able to swell together and to close up.

Narrator: We better get hammering,

Because we have a lot of work to do.

We know where we're going to build our ark.

We figured out who will do the job,

How many workers it'll take, and how long it will take them.

But we still have to look at the passenger list

And, of course, the final price tag.

♪

Narrator: We're imagining how we'd build a new noah's ark.

We know we're going to build it in canada

From cedar wood,

Using ancient shipbuilding methods.

And each bent consists of two half-bents.

Every animal onboard like noah did in the bible.

Scientists estimate that there are over 8 million species

On the planet today,

But our replica builders in kentucky believe that noah

Only brought 7,000 animals aboard his ark.

Ham: Well, the bible doesn't say that

Noah took millions of species on the ark.

It says that two of each kind

Of land-dwelling, air-breathing animal.

So it wasn't the sea creatures, for a start.

It was only the land-dwelling, everything animals.

And it wasn't two of each species.

It was two of each kind.

Is the way genesis presents it.

It was a very laborious job.

Narrator: Cutting down 65,000 trees and running them

Through a sawmill sounds

Like it's going to be pretty expensive.

Thompson: Even looking at that, I'd say $6 a foot

For relatively inexpensive wood

Would be $27 million in material just --

Just to make the hull.

♪

Narrator: Once all that wood gets delivered to our build site,

We need a team of people to build our ark.

♪

So, what kind of construction crew did the original ark have?

Noah's building the ark with his family,

By hand with an axe.

It's not really a problem because they all live so long

That they can take 100 years to do it.

They have all the time that they need to get it done.

Narrator: Noah had a family of eight,

Including three sons and their wives.

But how many people would we need to construct

A fully functioning ark today?

Thompson: I don't think a crew of eight could build the boat.

There's just too many heavy items to deal with,

And too much material to deal with.

I would definitely look up all of the --

The experienced shipwrights, who are people

Who are experienced in wooden-ship building.

Narrator: We're imagining how we'd build

And we've learned so much over the centuries

From the time of noah's ark that it would be much easier

And take much less time than it did originally.

♪

Narrator: So our plan is progressing.

We've decided where to build our new ark

And what we'll build it out of.

But before we call, "all aboard,"

Who's going to do the job?

How long will it take them?

And, how much will the whole thing cost?

[ cash register dings ]

[ thunder rumbling and crashing ]

And, uh, canvass them to come to my yard to help

A new noah's ark.

So far, we figured out we're going to build it in canada,

And we're going to stay true to tradition

And build it out of cedar wood.

According to the bible,

Noah had 100 years to do the job.

But we don't have that kind of time.

Surely, there are modern innovations

To help us speed things up.

Manthorne: So if I was building an ark,

I would have turn large trees into lumber.

And this is how I do this. We did this on a mill.

And noah would have to [indistinct]

"okay, how are we gonna build all this stuff?"

And built to the exact scale of the model.

On this model, on this side, you'll see all the lines.

And these are called loth lines.

We'd have to model the ark first,

Lay down the lines on a big area full-size,

And start squaring timber.

Narrator: Once we've chosen our building location

And mocked up our model,

We've got to get a massive amount of wood on-site.

In kentucky, the wood was measured and precut

Before it was delivered.

So once we sourced all of that material,

Then we had to figure out,

When the boat was scaled off the model

So we wanted to actually have the thing shipped

To a certain team

That could kind of cut up the beams

And put together the pieces

The way that they're gonna connect,

And then have them shipped to the site itself.

Narrator: Once the pieces arrive to our building site,

It's time to put them together and form our timber frame.

Ham: To understand what is meant by timber frame structure --

Because the ark we built is actually the largest timber

Frame structure in the world -- think about it like this.

A loaf of bread, and it has slices,

And you call each slice a bent.

While it was floating around the ocean,

With the ark, taking advantage of their experience

And their capabilities in doing this big project.

It would probably take a crew of minimum,

90 people working for a couple of years to --

To build a vessel of that size.

Narrator: All of that help is going to cost us.

90 people working for two years straight, uh, 40 hours a week.

And if we pay them $60 an hour,

There's another $25 million in labor to assemble the hull.

♪

But it's not just the shipbuilding crew we need.

We also need to think about the crew for the journey.

I'm not sure that a crew of eight could even crew the boat

What we tell the guests initially is right here,

Because there would've been feeding, cleanup, a lot of --

A lot of work to have been done.

Narrator: We'll plan to bring our entire crew of 90 onboard

Once construction is complete,

And it shouldn't take much persuasion.

Thompson: If everybody who's building the boat really believes

There's a flood coming, they're gonna be pretty committed

To wanting to be onboard the vessel.

Narrator: So looks like it'll be all hands on deck

Once we've built this thing.

We're planning to build big, but we're going to start small.

This is a tradition in wooden-boat building.

Models were used instead of blueprints,

We'll design top-notch cabins, plus a gym, library, cinema,

Once we get the frame together,

We'll furnish the interior with a bio lab

And pack in as many animal embryos

And dna samples as we can.

But, what about our scientists and crew?

They need to stay healthy and happy for a year on the water.

Marsh: One of the things about the ark,

Beyond just the creation of the ship itself,

Was really the cargo that noah

And his family were taking with them.

Not just the animals --

Those were the things that god told him to bring.

But they were bringing their culture with them.

Narrator: We'll outfit our ark a little like a cruise ship.

The finest boat-building skills in the world.

And chapel.

We'll stock the kitchen with astronaut food

And include fishing gear

So our passengers stay nourished until they're back on dry land.

So, bring it on.

We're ready for the water to rise.

♪

We did it!

We built in canada.

We made it out of over 65,000 cedar trees

Using a sawmill, traditional handheld tools,

And a lot of biological know-how.

It took over two years,

Capable of saving the population,

And cover the ark's deck with solar panels to power us

When the sun finally breaks through.

Imagine that -- noah's ark with a built-in science lab,

Fully equipped and capable of repopulating our world

With as much biodiversity as you can cram into an ocean liner.

But this ship is far from being ready to sail.

We know where we're going to build.

We know what we're going to build with,

Who's going to do the job, and how long it'll take.

But it remains to be seen --

How much is weathering this storm going to cost us?

[ thunder rumbling ]

We're imagining a life-sized lifeboat

And we used 90 traditional shipbuilders to do it.

Should natural disaster strike.

It's made of cedar, a strong and sensible shipbuilding material.

The ark will take two years

And 90 people working around the clock to build.

So, let's do it.

♪

First, we need to prepare our jobsite.

Thompson: You'd have to have an area that was grated out

So that you could build a boat

And make sure that it was flat on the bottom,

And that it was easy to assemble and easy to work around.

♪

Narrator: Then, we'll bring together craftsmen with some of

Is the idea that if we lose species at a high rate --

Narrator: The biblical story of noah's ark inspired us.

It's one of many stories written about

How humanity could survive catastrophe.

It seems to me that actually, some science fiction movies

Do a better job of re-imagining what the ark might be like, um,

Because you have these space capsules flying off

With all the plants that you need

And all the animals -- little pods

So that you can restart life on a different planet.

Narrator: It may seem like sci-fi,

But scientists are already preparing an insurance policy

Against global catastrophe.

Well, the importance of the frozen ark project really

♪

Which we are, right now --

Is there something we can do to bring them back after the fact,

Once we've figured out to maintain the ecosystems --

The tropical forests, the coral reefs,

The wetlands, the ice mountains and glaciers

That we are threatened to lose.

♪

Narrator: This is our best chance

At reversing the destruction of the natural world,

Without having to go to sea in a giant wooden ship.

It's a glimpse of a sustainable future,

And a hope for a happy ending,

If we built it today.

And every country was onboard,

So, what does that add up to?

Well, you're looking at a $50 million

To $60 million construction project,

Which is a big project.

Narrator: And that's just the labor and materials.

There's also the cost of fitting our ark

With a state-of-the-art laboratory.

♪

Now we're ready to save humanity,

And the animal world, at all costs.

Right?

If we had this global hand-holding and everybody

In every province or every continent

We'll pack enough batteries for 40 days and 40 nights of storm,

The power of people can make things happen.

Narrator: Especially when you consider that

The u.S. Spent over $130 billion

On disaster relief in 2017 alone.

So the ark, for me, is an interesting metaphor for,

We live on an ark.

And this is all we've got,

And there's no other planet we can repopulate --

At least, we don't know one yet --

Um, with the species we got.

So this is what we have,

And we need to be good zookeepers,

If you will, and keep this place alive indefinitely.

And released tens of thousands of animals.

But you literally figure out a way

To drop all of the waste products

Out into the sea through this thing.

So it literally goes through the center --

You know, the top and the bottom of the ark itself.

[ ship horn blows ]

Narrator: So we'll do like they do on ocean liners.

We'll treat and dump.

♪

Scripture and speculation can only take us so far.

How can we be confident that we can save the animal world

With our new ark?

Hope swinimer has wrangled

And the water's not gonna come up inside that,

There is no way.

You know, I look at life this way --

Doing a little something

Is better than doing nothing at all.

So let's just get what we can get, save what we can save,

And start with what we have to start with.

That's the plan.

[ rumbling ]

Narrator: It would be impossible to bring

Two of every single species onboard our ark.

So how much biodiversity are we going to be able to save?

Swinimer: Well, you gotta be selective.

You're gonna be a world traveler before this is all done.

Where the family would've gone through the bridge

We tell them we took a lot of artistic license.

'cause there's not a lot of detail about the ark

And how it was built.

There are some details about the animals

And things like that, but not a lot of detail about,

For instance, the wives' names --

Noah's wife and the daughters-in-law that noah had.

So we do take a lot of artistic license.

So what we have here is some of the cages

For the larger animals.

And as you can imagine, noah and his family

Probably didn't wanna be in the cages with the larger animals.

So we have these bridges here that we show

Even to get those 1.5 million

And done like an automatic feeder to bring grain and water

And what the animals needed to survive.

So these animals probably were not brought out of the cages

And walked around.

Narrator: The design team researched ancient shipbuilding methods

To answer some of the technical questions

That have been troubling skeptics for centuries,

Including how noah would've dealt with animal waste.

So, there's a thing called a moon pool

Which basically is a box that goes from the top of the ark

To the bottom of the ark.

And it's open to the sea.

It's open to the air above, and it's open to the sea below.

Is the frozen ark in England,

That've been known to carry diseases?

A lot of species have parasites and pathogens

That just attack them.

That's part of biodiversity.

So if you really want to take all species,

We have to take them, too.

Narrator: In other words,

The more animals we can save, the better.

[ roars ]

But we also need a plan to preserve

The countless scientific advancements

That've taken place since noah's ark was supposedly built.

So, a modern equivalent to an ark

But what about ticks, mosquitoes, and other insects

Where people are trying to preserve

Genetic material of endangered species --

Species we're threatened to be losing from this planet.

And the idea to maintain them

Is not to squish them into an ark or into a zoo.

That's maybe done for some species,

But for a lot of them, that's not practical.

So you take genetic samples from them, or gametes --

Sperms and eggs -- that can be fertilized,

And then recreate the species.

Narrator: Instead of food and water dishes,

We'll have petri dishes.

To keep the embryos frozen,

Like solitary confinement.

We have already described

Would be an enormous challenge, because there's many of them

That have only been seen once or twice.

So collecting them would take a long, long time.

♪

Narrator: And once we have the animals on the boat,

They have specific needs

That we'll have to take into consideration --

Things like sufficient room to move around,

And access to fresh air and natural sunlight.

Swinimer: They need all of this enrichment for their very wellbeing.

If they're in confinement without any enrichment,

It would be like a human put into a small square box

I don't see a problem at all, with the modern technology.

They would lose their will.

The other thing you'd really have to worry about

Is if a virus broke out.

I mean, it could wipe out every animal on the boat.

It really could.

You know, some animals might be immune to it,

But there's so many things medically that could go wrong.

Narrator: It's a noble undertaking to rescue

As many flying and breathing animals as possible.

We'll do the best we can in the space we have.

[ roars ]

We can sort the predators from the prey

And the spiders from the flies,

The bible is god's word.

♪

Narrator: The cost of a huge hand-crafted vessel just might sink us.

The replica in kentucky cost millions to build.

Somebody like ken ham is able to raise millions of dollars

To produce a huge ark in kentucky,

And people come and buy tickets,

And I'm sure that they're making their money back.

Narrator: We won't be selling tickets to recoup our money.

So we just may need a miracle to float this boat.

The replica in kentucky was the undertaking of an organization

That built their ark to prove that it could be done.

Ham: You could do as just a tourist attraction,

And people will come to it as a tourist attraction.

Actually, we did it because we actually do believe

That number of animals for any length of time.

And we do believe the message of the bible.

Narrator: Since we're not on a crusade,

Is there an actual need for a working ark today?

The condition for noah was that the world was in crisis.

And maybe with the ecological crisis,

We're also experiencing some rising floodwaters.

Narrator: Climate-change scientists say there's a real risk of everyone

And everything ending up underwater.

Ocean levels have been rising three millimeters annually

Since the year 2000.

That may not sound like much,

But experts agree that over time, it could spell disaster.

So we're going to need to craft a tight ship

We're not sure we could get everybody --

♪

And it'll need to be someone with access

To generations of boat-building secrets,

And the right tools in their toolbox.

These tools, of course, used in shipwright ship-building,

Would've likely been used when the ark was built.

And noah would've likely had a lot of tools

When he built the ark that would be made by hand.

Narrator: We need to consider where we'll build our ark.

Builders in kentucky were at the mercy of mother nature.

Time and weather were probably our --

Our biggest hurdles with that whole thing.

Narrator: Even if we could build a boat this big that's seaworthy,

To brave this storm.

Or at least, every creature -- on deck.

Swinimer: It's not easy to capture animals,

And they get stressed very easily.

Worm: We can't take them out of their habitat

And expect them to do well.

Very few species do well in captivity.

Narrator: And if we're able to round up the required number of animals,

We still have to figure out how to house and feed them.

[ grunting ]

We think somewhere between 6,000 and 7,000 animals

Would've been cared for by eight people every day.

I just can't foresee how that would work.

It would be impossible for any group of people to sustain

Builders of the replica in kentucky estimated

And the dimensions given are not dissimilar

To a large barge that are built today.

Narrator: Since we're recreating noah's ark,

We'll need to bring just as many animals onboard as he did.

But how much weight could a vessel this size handle?

Thompson: I would expect that probably a vessel of 50 feet high

Would probably not want to be floating at much more

Than 20 feet of draft,

So that gives you about 16,000 tons of capacity to carry --

To carry cargo.

[ elephant trumpets ]

16,000 tons is the equivalent

Of 2,300 elephants.

As close to a barge as you could envision.

A total of 7,000 animals on the ark,

Most of them weighing less than an elephant.

We'll plan to build a boat that's strong enough

To support the biggest animals on earth,

And buoyant enough to lift us above rising sea levels.

And that mission will guide every decision

We make on our modern-day noah's ark.

Where are we going to build it?

What are we going to make it out of?

How are we going to build this thing?

How long is it going to take?

How many people will we need?

And, how much will this whole thing cost?

The vessel would've been inherently strong,

Narrator: The great ark of the old testament --

Is there a need for it today, and could we even build it?

Climate scientists warn that sea levels

Are rising at an increasing rate.

And in time, our planet could face catastrophic changes.

We want to be prepared, so we're planning

Our own modern-day version of noah's ark.

But it will be no small task.

Man: Welcome aboard.

Manthorne: Hardest thing to build an ark

Would be your structural integrity of the vessel,

So that it would be capable of floating

And withstanding the stresses and strains on it.

So we'll need to find a builder who's up to the task.

Because it had three decks on it and that would've added,

Uh, a considerable longitudinal strength to the vessel.

And a vessel of 450 feet in length would --

Would be bending under the load.

Narrator: Our ark will need to be very durable

If it's going to stand up to the 40 days

And 40 nights of extreme weather that noah's faced.

It looks like we're going to need more of a barge

Than a boat.

It would be probably very important to just try

And get a very efficient shape

In terms of volume and weight-carriage.

And that would be as pretty much

Is so captivating that more than 4,000 years

And, um, and I'm not convinced

That people have either of these things today

When they're rebuilding arks.

There's nothing easy about building a vessel that size.

Narrator: We're on the jobsite of one of the world's greatest wonders.

And we're wondering, how long would it take?

How much would it cost?

How many workers would we need?

Could we even do it if we built it today?

-- Captions by vitac -- www.Vitac.Com

Captions paid for by discovery communications

♪

Narrator: The story of noah's ark

If that's involved in the commandment.

After we're told it set sail, believers, explorers,

And even astronauts are still searching for proof it exists.

Ham: Whenever there's supposed sightings of the ark,

It gets headline news.

Narrator: According to the bible, the remains of the ark

Are in a mountainous area on the border

Between turkey and armenia.

So far, no physical or photographic evidence

Has been confirmed.

But if you want to see what the ark might have looked like...

♪

...Just head to williamstown, kentucky,

Where a theme park hosts a replica

If it happened today? You never know.

Narrator: The biblical story of the great flood is legendary.

There's so much violence in the world,

That god decides to start over.

God says, "look, all of this trouble and evil

Has come up before me.

I'll start over with you. Build a boat."

Ham: He didn't say, "what's an ark? How do you build a ship?"

Noah just accepted it as if, "oh, yeah.

Well, that's doable. I can do that."

Narrator: According to the story,

Noah finished the ark just before the rain

Started falling for 40 days and 40 nights.

But would we be prepared for the great flood

Built to the exact dimensions found in the bible.

With global warming, we might need noah's ark.

Narrator: We're imagining a new ark

That will put today's bigger boats to shame.

But do we have the resources available to build it,

And will our ark be able to save

All the creatures on earth like noah's did?

We've estimated that in total, we have

8.7 million species on the planet.

Let's just get what we can get, save what we can save,

And start with what we have to start with.

Narrator: And, can we build it by the book?

Driver: First, you need a command from god.

And second, you need access to gopher wood,

Welcome to the ark encounter of williamstown, kentucky.

And noah is an exception to the general picture

On the face of the earth, and god says,

"look, all of this trouble and evil has come up before me.

I'll start over with you. Build a boat.

Put your family on it, and we'll start over."

♪

Narrator: Today, we build giant boats all the time.

But, could we take on an ark?

♪

It would be a massive project to build a wooden vessel

The size of the ark.

Narrator: Fortunately, we have a prototype

To get us started.

That god decides to start over.

We broke ground here in the summer of 2014,

And opened in July of 2016.

We've had over 2 million guests

Come through the ark encounter from around the world.

Narrator: This replica gives us an idea

Of what the ark might've looked like.

But this is one ship that will never sail.

It sits on concrete towers 15 feet above ground.

Ham: When someone asks me, "would it float?", I say, no.

It has three big gaping holes in the back of it

Because it actually is anchored to three seven-story towers.

Narrator: We want to build a boat

That can actually stay afloat in a great flood.

♪

The ark was built based upon, first of all, the bible,

'cause it basically has the height,

The width, and the length.

And that's kind of all that the bible described.

Narrator: It's the biggest timber-built structure in the world.

♪

It's stands 51 feet, or more than four stories, tall...

And 510 feet long,

The length of nearly one-and-a-half football fields.

It has four decks, and the floor space

Is equivalent to 20 basketball courts.

When you build it to the size according to the bible,

It actually says something.

♪

Narrator: The biblical measurements of the ark have inspired

Many interpretations throughout history.

Driver: Hugh of saint-victor says that the ark is basically a metaphor,

Or a figure of a type of salvation in the world as such.

And so for him, the length of the ark is really measuring

The day the world's created until the day when it ends.

And the width is how many people are on the boat,

Which is the size of the church.

And that width changes and goes in and out.

Narrator: As the story goes,

God took drastic measures to course-correct

The misguided ways of his people.

Driver: There's so much violence in the world,

To the exact wood used in noah's time,

But it -- it is an excellent material for building a vessel.

Narrator: So we're going to take our cue from the ancients.

We'll build our ark out of wood.

According to the bible, noah used gopher wood.

What is that?

Nobody really knows what gopher wood is.

As a building material, um,

The ancients were already speculating on what it could be.

Manthorne: Gopher wood is likely cedar wood.

That's very good boat-building wood

Because of the strength versus weight.

It's an extremely strong wood,

And it's still used today in vessels.

Narrator: So cedar is as close as we're going to get

As it would've been 4,500 years ago,

But can we find it in this neck of the woods?

♪

Hemessen: We're in this forest that has a lot of spruce in it --

White spruce and red spruce.

We have that special tree here -- the eastern white cedar.

Cedar is a really good wood for building boats.

It's a soft wood that is easy to work with and shape,

And it's very rot-resistant.

Narrator: That's important, because like noah's ark,

We want this boat to last a full year after it's finished.

Hemessen: These cedars that grow in eastern north america,

They can get fairly big.

Some of the tallest ones can get to 100 feet.

And in fact, if we try to put that technology in a ship --

With all this modern advancement,

Is a handmade wooden boat really our best option?

Narrator: We want to build a massive modern-day ark

That would be able to stay afloat, like noah's did,

Just in case rising sea levels

Cause a natural disaster of biblical proportions.

According to the old testament, noah used wood to build his ark.

But with today's technology,

Is there a better option for ours?

There might've been some ingenious things

That they did that we would look and say, "oh, wow.

We just rely on cranes today,"

That, you know, have big diesel motors and so on.

Narrator: So how many of these big trees

And we do. We have great big steel ships

That have that sort of technology.

And the engine room takes up a lot of room,

And then you have to have a lot of people

Looking after that and maintaining it.

Actually, from a perspective of building the ark today,

I think it would make it far too complicated.

Narrator: Maybe noah did know a lot more than we suspect,

Especially about the wisdom of simplicity.

Wood is still used on a lot of traditional boat-building

And, uh, a lot of yachts and some larger vessels.

The material is strong and resilient.

It's maybe not as commonly available today in larger sizes

Turns out, there's a mill near our east coast build site

And then there are these large beams that go up the center

Of the ship that kind of hold the whole center together.

Narrator: So we'll source our cedar from multiple locations

Throughout north america.

Then, we'll have to get it shipped to our building site.

We're looking at one of the biggest

Lumber orders in history.

Thompson: If we looked at the overall size of that vessel,

That would represent something like 65,000 trees

Being consumed.

Narrator: Where are we going to find a sawmill to deal

With this mega lumber order?

♪

That sort of thing.

That's been running for four generations.

So if we had 65,000 logs delivered to the mill,

We would de-bark them and dry them in the dry kiln,

And plane it through our planing system and ship it to you.

Narrator: But could a modern-day mill handle a boat

That required biblical-sized planks?

Wilber: If they're not standard sizes,

We would have to make some changes in the mill.

Uh, but those changes are --

Nowadays, with technology -- quite easily made.

And it could be done quite easily,

Just take a little time to set up.

Narrator: This sawmill master says we could get the job done fast.

But does canada have enough of our wood of choice?

Are we going to have to bring down?

Hemessen: To make an ark, you need about 20 hectares of cedar.

And that's a lot of wood.

Narrator: Although we're building a boat to save us from flooding,

There's a chance that harvesting all this cedar

Could make the water rise even faster.

Hemessen: When you lose vegetation -- when you lose trees,

Especially -- you would get erosion problems,

And you get flooding problems.

♪

Narrator: Of the 250 million hectares of forest found in canada,

We only need 20 hectares -- or 49 acres worth --

To build our ark.

In transit right now.

Hemessen: You could be hard-pressed here now to find 20 hectares worth,

At least all in one location.

It would be, "do I have to go to several locations

And gather up your wood?"

Narrator: Maybe our friends in kentucky can help us.

♪

Their replica of the ark was built with enough timber

To go all the way from the museum's site

In williamstown to philadelphia, pennsylvania.

Well, the first thing was, it's huge.

So actually, what we needed was huge wood, right?

So what we did is we had to source the lumber,

And we basically got it from washington, oregon, canada --

The bible is full of instructions

Narrator: But before we settle on wood as our main material,

Maybe we should make sure we're not overlooking

A better option -- like steel, for example.

I think we can all agree that it'd be very easy

To build a boat of that size out of steel.

Uh, wood is 16 times lighter than steel,

Which is a good thing for a floating object.

But it's 16 times as weak as steel.

Narrator: There are some fine steel ships built in canada, too.

So let's not rule out a metal ark just yet.

♪

So, how are we going to build this thing?

It turns out, the bible is a good resource for our project.

Over many, many centuries.

About how to build things.

And in the case of noah's ark,

Exact dimensions are given in cubits.

Narrator: A cubit is roughly the length of a man's forearm.

That's a pretty antiquated way of measuring.

We don't want to jeopardize our project

By focusing too much on the biblical specs.

So the function of the story doesn't seem, to me,

To drive building projects.

It does other sorts of things.

It maybe talks about what salvation is,

How god relates to god's people.

But, um, but whether it's providing blueprints

There are still quite a few wooden shipwrights,

Our first job -- choosing a construction site.

We've got our eye on this stretch

Of north american coastline, birthplace of some

Of the biggest and fastest ships in the world.

We were well-known for ship-building in the past.

We had the clipper ships, we had the beautiful bluenose.

Narrator: There's a forest full of raw materials

To choose from in nova scotia.

Manthorne: There is wood likely, today, growing in canada

That would be capable

Of supporting that kind of a project.

Narrator: And it seems like we'll be able to find the crew

We need here, too.

Seems, to me, quite unlikely.

Uh, have their own shops and are still building wooden ships.

Narrator: We're sold.

We'll build it along these shores.

Now let's consider our materials.

In the bible, noah built his ark out of wood.

Should we do the same?

Wood is an excellent material for building boats,

And there's no structural reason

Why it couldn't be built that size.

There's been a lot of engineering developments

In boat building over the years.

And even in wooden-boat builders,

Their system evolved for building

Check out this monster cruise liner,

Just how advanced will our ark need to be?

Thompson: So, the ark was essentially a large volume-

And weight-carrying vehicle.

And it didn't need to have any propulsion.

There were no engines. There were no sails.

And looking at that, there's a --

It offers a few simplicities in the design

Of a vessel of that type.

Narrator: Up until the 19th century,

Noah's epic ark would've been the same size

As the largest seagoing vessel ever built.

Then, ocean liners were invented.

And ever since, they've just been getting bigger and bigger.

Today, cruise ships and freighters rule the seas.

Harmony of the seas.

The second-largest passenger ship in the world,

It can fit almost 8,000 passengers

And crew into 18 different decks.

It cost $1.35 billion,

Took four years to build,

And is more than twice the length of our ark.

This aircraft carrier, the uss carl vinson,

Is also more than twice as long as our ark

And can fit 90 aircraft onboard.

And today's global economy depends on transporting

A massive volume of goods by water,

With more than 2 million shipping containers

Johan's ark isn't really ready to set sail.

Narrator: Engineers discovered something about this ancient blueprint

When they converted cubits into feet.

Kanewske: 510 feet long,

51 feet high, 84 feet wide -- they're perfect dimensions.

We've talked to a lot of engineers on this subject.

They say it's the perfect dimensions

For weight distribution, seaworthiness,

And just an overall ride for the ship.

♪

Narrator: The replica at the ark encounter theme park in kentucky

Is built to these exact specs.

So is this one in the netherlands called johan's ark.

Although it's technically in the water,

[ thunder rumbling and crashing ]

It's perched on top of a string of floating shipping containers.

So far, we have hypothetical dimensions guiding us

In the creation of our modern-day ark.

Ours needs to be functional, though.

Luckily, we do have centuries of boat-building know-how

To draw on.

People have been building boats out of logs

And crafting canoes since prehistoric times.

♪

By 200 b.C.,

The romans were using enslaved sailors to power their galleons.

By the 1500s, sails powered ships mighty enough

To fight wars.