A Millionaire Spent Years Building a Full-Scale Ark. The Inside Is What’s Truly Mindblowing

When religion and piles of money collide, things can get pretty crazy. But fear not, this isn’t going to be a heavy op-ed about Saudi Arabia or Ted Cruz. This is the story of how one man used his wealth to realize a massively ambitious spiritual goal, with amazing results.
Somewhere along the Merwede river in the Netherlands lies a hulking colossus. A man-made giant of literally Biblical proportions. But who built it – and why?



The story begins in 1992. Johan Huibers, a millionaire and a hardcore creationist, had an apocalyptic dream that the low-lying Dutch coastlands would be inundated by seawater. The flood dream never left him, and he felt compelled to begin what he saw as his life’s work

Inspired by the Bible, and specifically God’s instructions to Noah in chapters six to nine of Genesis, Huibers set about building a real ark in 2005. It was about 230 feet long, and he used it to sail the seas around the Netherlands for three and a half years.

But Huibers’ creationist itch, it seems, hadn’t been properly scratched. In 2009, he set about realizing his true ambition: he wanted to construct an ark the same size as the one written about in the Bible. Exactly the same size. The project took three years to complete, costing around $1.6 million. Money wasn’t too much of an object for Huibers, it seems.

And when the project was finally completed, the structure was gigantic; Huibers followed the Biblical blueprint to the detail. Indeed, he converted cubits into modern measurements, and the new ark came in at a whopping 430 feet long, 100 feet wide and 75 feet high.

Naturally, the mammoth task of creating a flood-proof, live-in ark called for a lot of materials. The finished product, then, weighs in at 2,500 tons, with the ark boasting five decks.

And Huibers wasn’t afraid to put some hard graft in himself. After all, this dedicated Christian – who perhaps follows in the steps of his idol a little too closely – is actually a carpenter.

When he finished the ark in 2012, though, Huibers was keen to share his awesome creation with the world. Well, it was built to hold 5,000 people, so there was plenty of space on board.

Alas, some Biblical instructions had been impossible to follow. While in Genesis, Noah uses “gopher wood” to build his ship, Huibers combined the metal hulls of a few old barges to create his ark, before cladding it with Scandinavian pine wood

But how did Huibers plan to truly amaze visitors to the ark? And how did he think it best to educate people about the message of the Bible?

Every school kid knows that in the Bible, God tells Noah to build an ark large enough to house two of every animal on earth. Well, Huibers followed that part of the plan too. Kind of.

He filled the structure to the rafters with life-size plastic sculptures of the animals that Noah is supposed to have saved. You can’t deny that this guy is a real stickler for detail

The plastic animals, as you might imagine, were seriously costly. Indeed, just one of the life-size elephants that Huibers installed on the ark cost him $11,000.

Huibers didn’t just put plastic animals on the ark, though. It also houses a number of real animals, although nothing as big as an elephant. Most of the live creatures are birds, such as parrots, peacocks and pheasants, but there are also some rabbits on the vessel

In case passengers get bored of petting the bunnies during the apocalyptic deluge, however, Huibers has made room for some other diversions too. For example, the ark also houses a restaurant and two cinemas, along with plenty of information relating to the flood story.

The awesome vessel is currently moored at the town of Dordrecht in the Netherlands, but perhaps not for much longer. Never afraid of thinking big, Huibers is planning something even more ambitious for his ark.

In summer 2016 he wants to sail the ark some 5,000 miles over the Atlantic to Brazil, where he hopes to arrive in good time for the Olympic and Paralympic games. Once there, he aims to provide spiritual and “practical support for the underprivileged” people in the country.

On the way, Huibers plans to stop off in the United States, dropping anchor at San Francisco and Seattle, among other places. It’s a huge undertaking, and he’s still well shy of the funding he needs to make the project happen.

But given his amount of self-belief, it’s doubtful that this worries Huibers. In fact, he’s even said that he’d like to get Israel and the Arab states to work together to construct a water pipe between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. Let’s just hope he manages it before the flood hits