[2] How big was Noah’s Ark with facts and figures

How did Noah’s Ark compare with modern ships?

Many people think that Noah’s Ark is just a nice kid’s story, but if you study all the information that is within the Bible, then it becomes an exciting possibility.

One common question which is asked is, ‘How big was Noah’s Ark compared to a football field?’ or ‘How did Noah’s Ark compare with a modern cruise liner?’

The majority of top-level professional football pitches, including the English Premier League, should measure 102.4 to 105.2 metres long (112 to 115 yards) and 64.0 to 68.6 metres wide (70 to 75 yards). [Info from Wikipedia ‘Football pitch’ ¹ ]
So Noah’s Ark was about 35 metres longer than a football pitch and about a third of the football width.

Noah’s Ark is compared to other well-known ships further down this page.

1. The size of the Ark was comparable to modern ocean-going ships

How big was Noah’s Ark, well the length and beam of Noah’s Ark make it very sea-worthy and compared with that of a 14000-ton Tanker.

Noah’s Ark resembled a huge barge. It was just built to float – it had no sails, oars, propellers or rudder.

It consisted of three decks and a 0.5-metre ventilation gap just below the roof, running it′s full length.

It had the correct proportions and was totally seaworthy.

The Ark not only needed to float but also it was vital for it to withstand the flood waters.

2. The Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh

This myth-like story of a Babylonian flood has the ark in the story with the dimensions of a cube:

The bottom of the hull was one acre in area, with six decks raised on it. (And the vessel seems to have been cube-shaped!)”

‘How to Read Gilgamesh’ by Joan Acocella. ²

From the actual story, it says:

The boat must have equal dimensions with corresponding width and length…
The sides of the superstructure had equal lengths of 120 cubits.

‘Gilgamesh flood myth’ Wikipedia ³

How big is that?

The Babylonian cubit (or cubit of Lagash) measured about 496.1 mm.
A Babylonian trade cubit existed which was nine-tenths of the normal cubit, that is, 446.5 mm.”

‘The Cubit: A History and Measurement Commentary’ by Mark H. Stone ⁴

So if we take it as the first measurement, then the Babylonian ark would have been a cube: 59 metres by 59 metres by 59 metres.
Which doesn’t sound like a real ocean-going vessel!

3. Noah’s Ark size comparison with other ships

The eight images below are shown to the same scale: (Small screens may not display these accurately, but hopefully it will give a visual indication of their sizes)

The Mayflower

In 1620, a merchant ship called the Mayflower set sail from Plymouth, England. It carried 102 passengers hoping to start a new life in America.

Length: 19.5 metres and beam: 8 metres.

Cutty Sark

How big was Noah’s Ark? A lot bigger than the Cutty Sark which was a Tea Clipper that sailed very fast between China and Britain from 1870 onwards.

Length: 67.7 metres and beam 11 metres.

SMS Scharnhorst

The SMS Scharnhorst was an armoured cruiser of the Imperial German Navy before and through WW1.

Length: 144.7 metres and beam: 21.6 metres.

The size of Noah’s Ark

This is how you are to build it:
The ark is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high.”

Genesis 6:15 NIV

Length: 140 metres and beam: 23 metres.

A 14000 ton Tanker – comparable size to Noah’s Ark

Length: 143 metres and beam: 23 metres.

Multi-Purpose Dry Cargo Ship DWT 22000 ton

Length: 164 metres and beam: 25.3 metres.

RMS Titanic

On the Titanic’s first trip at 11:40 PM on 14 April 1912 it hit an iceberg in the Atlantic Ocean and it sank two hours and forty minutes later killing over 1500 people.
The RMS Titanic was 129 metres longer than Noah’s Ark but only slightly wider.

Length: 269 metres and beam: 28 metres.

Supertanker

A Super tanker is 160 metres longer and nearly twice as wide as Noah’s Ark.
Length: 300 metres and beam: 44 metres.

4. Could Noah have built it?

Noah followed God’s plan for the construction details, could Noah have built the Ark?
Noah was going to spend a lot of money on hiring labourers and a huge chunk of his life dedicating himself to this project so he needed to know that God was totally reliable and that it wasn’t some fickle knee-jerk plan.

Noah had probably never seen an ocean or had any knowledge of shipbuilding, but the end result was that he built it with the right proportions to be very seaworthy.

It was also massive in size to hold a lot of cargo, animals and people.

We can be utterly amazed at how the ancient civilisations built enormous and complex things:
The Pyramids, Stonehenge, cathedrals, complex cranes and other machinery, all with tremendous accuracy.

When modern engineers come to copy some of the ancient things, their knowledge and skill are often severely stretched and often they express amazement at how it was originally built:

In this next generation of storytelling, Ancient Impossible reveals how many of today’s technological achievements were actually developed centuries ago.
Colossal monuments, impossible feats of engineering, and technologies so precise they defy reinvention…
The ancient world was far more advanced than we ever imagined.
We’ll travel through history to reveal a radically different picture of the past, with innovations so far ahead of their time, they’re still in use today.
Now, new science uncovers a lost world more like our own than we ever suspected, and reveals how modern technology has its blueprint in the ancient world.”

‘Ancient Impossible’ Sky History ⁵

So early mankind were clever engineers.

5. How did Noah know how big to build the Ark and how to construct it?

God gave Noah the dimensions and the plan of how to build it:

So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; ⁶
make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out.
This is how you are to build it:
The ark is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high.
Make a roof for it, leaving below the roof an opening one cubit high all around.
Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks.”

Genesis 6:14-16 NIV

Noah probably was very rich, so he would have been able to hire a lot of men to build it.

Below is a ship that can be made to order from Holland, of a very similar size to Noah’s Ark:
Length 143 metres and beam 23 metres.
(Noah’s Ark: Length 140 metres and beam 23 metres).

Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God.”

Genesis 6:9 NIV

6. How many animals could fit on Noah’s Ark?

The Ark measured 300 x 50 x 30 cubits which is about:
140 metres long, with a beam of 23 metres which equals 3220 square metres.
It had three decks, one hold and one roof.

The Ark was 14m tall, so if the decks were equally spaced, that means a height of, say, 3m to allow for beams and floorboards on each deck and in the hold.
The total capacity of the Ark would be about 38,640 cubic metres. ⁸
That is equivalent to 1181 containers (20-foot-long ones).
For a sense of scale, each container can house 80 big oil drums. ⁹

If the bottom hold was allocated to food and water that would have had an equivalent usable space of 344 containers.

Modern container ships now can carry over 21,000 twenty-foot containers.

The three decks could then carry the equivalent of 344 containers on each deck for the animals, creatures and humans.

In 2011, Ark Encounter researchers began an in-depth animal study on the number of the Ark ‘kinds’ (known as a Baramin). ¹⁰

Based on initial projections, the team estimates that there were around 1,400 animal kinds on the ark and in the future research may reduce that number even further.
But using a ‘worst-case scenario’ number the Ark Encounter team states that there were fewer than 7,000 animals and flying creatures on board the Ark, roughly 1,500 kinds of land-dwelling animals and flying creatures.
This includes all living and known extinct animals.

It is projected that only 15% of the animals on the Ark would have achieved an average adult mass of over 22 pounds (10 kg) because Noah would have had young animals.
That means that the vast majority of Ark animals were smaller than a beagle, with most of those being much smaller.

The wide discrepancy between the number of Ark kinds and individuals is due to the relatively large number of flying and “clean” kinds—each estimated at 14 animals apiece.

It is worth noting that the numbers included here are only initial estimates drawn from currently available information.
On the other hand, a hypothetical 3D-digital ark created by the Ark Encounter design team, complete with all enclosures, interior structural elements, food, and water storage, showed that everything fit extremely well with little space left over.”

‘How Could All the Animals Fit on the Ark?’ by Michael Belknap and Tim Chaffey 2019.

So if we appreciate that Noah’s Ark was a barge with a huge storage area, and that the animals were young and therefore small, and that we consider that the creatures were ‘kinds’ not species, then those numbers can be accommodated upon the Ark.

Also, Noah didn’t have to go out and search for and catch all the creatures, because God said:

Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you…”

Genesis 6:20 NIV

See this article: ‘Our hard work and God’s miracles‘.

See the timeline for the flood starting and subsiding, the Bible gives a very detailed account, something that myths don’t do.
Why did the Ark ground on Mt Ararat and not a more favourite Jewish mountain? Also, where is Mt Ararat today?
See also some more thoughts on the flood.

References and credits – open in new tabs:

1. ‘Football pitch’ by Wikipedia  ↩

2. ‘How to Read Gilgamesh’ by Joan Acocella ↩

3. ‘Gilgamesh flood myth’ Wikipedia ↩

4. ‘The Cubit: A History and Measurement Commentary’ by Mark H. Stone ↩

5. ‘Ancient Impossible’ Sky History ↩

6. The Hebrew word is unknown. ↩

7. Volharding Shipbuilders ↩

8. ‘How Big Was Noah’s Ark?’ Ark Encounter ↩

9. ‘The Definitive Shipping Container Capacity Chart’ by Paige Welsh Falcon Structure ↩

10. ‘How Could All the Animals Fit on the Ark?’ by Michael Belknap and Tim Chaffey 2019 ↩