The ark, which cost around $100m to build, has been the subject of some controversy. That impression is slightly spoiled by the presence of two Pepsi-branded refrigerators stocking a range of soft beverages, but – just as in Noah’s day – people do get thirsty. The seafarers’ accommodations look like something Roger Moore’s James Bond might blunder into on a jaunt to Morocco It succeeds in giving a sense of what it might have been like on the ark.
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The stern of the ship is free of animal storage, allowing visitors to see the curvature of the craft’s hull, with huge beams holding pine planks in place. Huge wooden columns – tree trunks harvested in Washington and Montana – support each floor. The animals are stored across three levels inside the ark. There’s some sort of dwarf-T Rex, and a depressed-looking leathery-thing that might be related to a pterodactyl. There’s one that looks like a stegosaurus, with spines on its back. There’s one which is akin to a brachiosaurus, with a long neck and tail. Photograph: John Minchillo/APĪnd, given Answers in Genesis believes that dinosaurs walked the earth at the same time as man, there are also dinosaurs. A cubit is roughly the distance from your fingers to your elbow – you can buy a “Noah’s cubit” in the gift shop.Ī visitor looks into a cage containing a model dinosaur on the ark. In fact, the whole ship looks like something one might find at Ikea: smooth lines, minimal design and a baffling assembly method.Īnswers in Genesis got the details for the build from measurements written in Genesis 6, in which God tells Noah the ark should be “ 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide, and 30 cubits high”. The pale yellow wood on its long hull – Radiata pine imported from New Zealand – brings to mind Ikea’s ubiquitous birch veneer furniture collection. Neat is quite a good adjective for the ark’s exterior. “That’s neat as hell.” The whole ship looks like something one might find at Ikea: smooth lines, minimal design and a baffling assembly method “Wow,” he said as we pulled up at the ark’s port side.
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In fact the ark’s scale is such that even Charles, the taxi driver who dropped me off there on Tuesday morning and had never heard of the Ark Encounter, despite living only twenty miles away, was impressed. Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPAįor those making the journey to Williamstown, 50 miles north of Lexington, a genuinely impressive structure awaits.
Visitors tour the newly opened Ark Encounter. The ark is a non-floating exhibition offering both a glimpse into Noah’s life at sea and an opportunity to learn about Answers in Genesis’s theories on how our planet came to exist. The group estimates that 1.4m people will visit the vessel in the first year and that the ark will bring $4bn to the Commonwealth of Kentucky. (The vessel would displace – while sinking like a stone – 15,000 to 20,000 tons of water).Īnswers in Genesis, a creationist religious organisation that believes God created the Earth in six days and that the world is 6,000 years old, is behind the modern-day ark, which will open to the public on 7 July. It is 510ft long, seven storeys tall and, given its base is made of concrete, almost certain not to survive another of God’s watery caprices. The Ark Encounter, based in the north of the Bluegrass state, is sculpted to proportions specified in the book of Genesis. God curbed his dramatic tendencies on Tuesday, neglecting to initiate a global flood during the figurative launching of a full-size Noah’s ark replica in Kentucky.