Mr. Huibers, 60, the successful owner of a big construction company, has spent the last few years building an ark, identical in size to the one Noah is said in the book of Genesis to have built: 300 cubits in length, or 450 feet; 30 cubits high, or about three stories; and 50 cubits, or 75 feet, wide. The cubit of the Bible, Mr. Huibers said, was the distance between finger tips and elbow, or in his case roughly 18 inches.
He is building the ark out of Swedish pine, because some versions of the Bible describe the wood God ordered Noah to use as “resin wood,” which Mr. Huibers says is pine.
“We should finish by the middle of July,” he said, leading a visitor through the ark’s cavernous decks, still rich with the smell of fresh pine. “Maybe later.” “More than 600,000 people came, in about three years,” he said. He said he made about $3.5 million, enough to clear a profit of $1.2 million.
But it was not about money. “It is to tell people that there is a Bible,” Mr. Huibers, a spry man with a quick sense of humor said. “And that, when you open it, there is a God.”
“It’s a simple meaning,” he said. “A lot of things in the boat lead you to think. We make people curious.”
When it is finished, the ark will be a kind of teaching tool. Panoramas will tell the story of Noah; live animals will bring the pageant to life. (At the moment, only birds in cages and hens and roosters live on board.) Two conference rooms will seat a total of 1,500 people. Huibers said he hopes the project will renew interest in Christianity in the Netherlands , where church going has fallen dramatically in the past 50 years.