Building a large wooden vessel: The ark is larger than any known wooden vessel, but ancient Greeks built a ship carrying 4,000 cargo tons (Alexandris), and boats carrying 450 tons were in widespread use in 1,500 BC. The key point to remember is that the ark was not really a "boat" - it was a simple structure that merely needed to float.

Care of the animals by eight people: With the use of labor saving enclosures for feeding and waste management, Woodmorappe determines that "very many different combinations of [care] procedures would have satisfied the daily 7.2 second/animal/caretaker maximal time allotment" (p. 81), allowing 8 people to care for 16,000 animals.

Animals that eat fresh or live food, or have special diets: Noah could certainly have brought extra animals to provide some live food, and some fresh food could have been grown hydroponically (rooted in liquid nutrient solution). Many of the few animals that normally eat a specialized diet are capable of surviving on other, more common, foods in captivity.

Heat buildup and illumination in the ark: Woodmorappe shows that the presence of the slot "window" is sufficient to remove heat and provide illumination (see Chapter 5).

Wouldn't the ark have capsized in the violent waters of the flood? First, the most violent waters occur near land, and the ark was likely in deep ocean areas. Second, stability tests performed on models of the ark show that it was capable of withstanding waves up to 200 feet high, and would tend to right itself even when tilted close to 90 degrees. Also, the 6:1 ark length:width ratio is known to modern shipbuilders as a stable configuration.