engineering

Johan's Ark

Johan's Ark is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Johan's Ark rather than just read about it. In short: Johan's Ark is a Noah's Ark-themed barge in Dordrecht, Netherlands, which was built by the Dutch building contractor, carpenter and creationist Johan Huibers. It is a full-scale interpretation of the biblical Ark, featuring animal models, including cows, penguins, a crocodile, and a giraffe.

Key takeaways

Johan's Ark belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Johan's Ark to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Johan's Ark from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Johan's Ark is a Noah's Ark-themed barge in Dordrecht, Netherlands, which was built by the Dutch building contractor, carpenter and creationist Johan Huibers. It is a full-scale interpretation of the biblical Ark, featuring animal models, including cows, penguins, a crocodile, and a giraffe. It opened to the public in 2012.

Construction Huibers built his ark with eight helpers in four years. It is divided in seven stories. The wooden construction is carried on a hidden floating platform from steel made up of 21 LASH barges. Previously the LASH barges were cargo containers, towed or pushed as floating barges over inland waterways, while carried on large ships over rough seas. Hence the ark can be towed by tugboats over the rivers, but it is not seaworthy. It could travel the seas on top of a pontoon or transport ship. The wood volume is equivalent to 12000 trees. While the Bible specified that the Ark had to be built from the unknown gopher wood, this ark is made of American Cedar and Pine. The ark is 119m (390 ft or 266 cubits) long, 30m (98 ft or 66 cubits) wide, and 23m (75 ft or 50 cubits) high. The cost of building it was 4 million euros.

Half-scale version

A few years earlier Huibers built a half-scale interpretation of the Ark, in the river port of Schagen, 50 km north of Amsterdam. Huibers did the work mostly with his own hands, using modern tools and occasional help from his son, in one and a half years. Its size, adapted for sailing the Dutch canals and locks, was 70 metres (230 ft) long, 9.5 metres (31 ft) wide, and 13 metres (43 ft) high. The cost to build was 1 million euro. In 2007 Huibers opened the doors to visitors. After a few months the vessel was towed by tugboat through the canals and moored in 21 harbors in the Netherlands. The ark was sold to Dutch artist Aad Peters in 2010. He tours through Germany, Denmark and Norway. Although the ark isn't really seaworthy and can't handle waves higher than two meters, it was successfully towed across the sea from Denmark to Norway. On 10 June 2016, the ark collided with a moored vessel (NoCGV Nornen) while under tow in Oslo harbor. The ark suffered severe damage to its wooden cladding.

Visit to Ipswich In November 2019 Aad Peters brought the Ark to Ipswich, Suffolk. He explained that this was because of Brexit. He explained that he felt that the story of the Judgment of Solomon was important when faced with the sort of social division such as experienced around Brexit. Shortly after arriving in Ipswich the vessel was impounded in the dock by coastguard officers because "load line certificates [were] missing, no tonnage information, and a range of other concerns." In June 2021 the vessel was still being detained in Ipswich due to “serious concerns” about its condition and seaworthiness. It was released on the 1st of July, and it reached Vlissingen in the Netherlands five days later.

See also Flood myth and List of flood myths Noah's Ark replicas and derivatives

References

External links Official website (cached at Internet Archive)

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Johan's Ark

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Johan's Ark claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Johan's Ark before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Johan's Ark ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Johan's Ark

In research: Johan's Ark appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Johan's Ark in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Johan's Ark is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Buildings and structures in Dordrecht, Creationism, Religious museums in the Netherlands, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Johan's Ark outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Johan's Ark in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Johan's Ark means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Johan's Ark out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Johan's Ark in simple terms?

Why does Johan's Ark matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Johan's Ark?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Johan's Ark.