Comment Re:Existence of this... (Score 1) 451
In the 1800s even under the copper plating, the seams were caulked with oakum soaked in pine tar, driven in place with a caulking mallet and a caulking iron, putty was then applied to the hull seams and the deck seams were payed with melted pine pitch. The weather deck of the ship had to be as water-tight as the hull or waves breaking over the deck would founder the ship in short order. That's another thing that the typical Ark description gets wrong.
The pictures I've seen of the interior of modern Ark replicas look more like barn framing than ship framing. Wooden cargo ship frames from the 1800s were large. For example, the Flying Cloud had floor timbers (think ribs) that were sided(along the length of the ship) 12 inches, moulded (outside to inside) 17 inches at the keel (typically white oak or live oak), space between the frames was typically the same as the sided dimension (12 inches in this case). The keel of the Flying Cloud was 3 layers of rock maple, moulded 44 inches, and sided 16 inches, with additional keelsons and sister keelsons, the ship was nearly 9 feet through the backbone. And, it was all bolted through and through with 1 1/4 inch copper and iron bolts. Even the garboard strakes (outside hull planks) were from 4 1/2 inches to 7 inches thick, The ceiling (inside hull planks) was a minimum of 4 1/2 inches up to 7 inches thick. Most of the planking and ceiling were southern pine.