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There's one other consideration which most ignore, i.e. that the ark did not have to move under sail, but only had to float. Similarly, Korean floating fortresses in wars against Japan back around 700 AD if memory serves were enormous compared to any western wooden ship. As to Zheng He's ships, China was in the habit of doing a number of things on a much larger scale than other nations did in the middle ages, the wall being one such. China used more steel in the 1100s than England ever did until the middle of the 1800s as I've read it.

There's one other consideration which most ignore, i.e. that the ark did not have to move under sail, but only had to float.

Even if true (and it doesn't really help, such a ship would need to be able to control itself to avoid broaching in heavy seas and to make internal conditions bearable) that contention offers no help to the Chinese Treasure Ship tales.

Similarly, Korean floating fortresses in wars against Japan back around 700 AD if memory serves were enormous compared to any western wooden ship.

The Korean Turtle Ships used in the Wars against Japan and pirates between 1400 and 1600 were considered enormous for that era, and are sometimes referred to as floating fortresses. They were about 120 ft long and would have been about 1200 tons. Curiously, if tales of giant Chinese ships are true, they never seem to have come across any of the 15,000 ton leviathans supposedly built by the Chinese.

As to Zheng He's ships, China was in the habit of doing a number of things on a much larger scale than other nations did in the middle ages, the wall being one such. China used more steel in the 1100s than England ever did until the middle of the 1800s as I've read it.

I never contended that China wasn't an advanced civilisation capable of great things. Clearly the treasure trading fleets led by Zheng He actually existed and conducted remarkable journeys of exploration, but even the reports of those journeys seem laden with hyperbole. The evidence for the really giant treasure ships is extremely thin, at best. Probably the fleet did include ships that were large for the period, but 600ft is simply ludicrous. Maybe designs above 300ft were attempted, but they wouldn't have worked, except maybe as lake-pleasure barges for the emperor.

The armored warships used by the Koreans against Japan a few centuries back were not all that large. Indeed, there is a full-scale model of one in a Korean military museum.

The maximum length of any wooden ship is 90 meters; larger hulls cannot handle the wave stresses. It has nothing to do with "moving under sail." The Ark and those mythological Chinese junks are simply physically impossible. The Chinese may have been making steel in the Middle Ages, but until the 19th century it was impossible to make steel in the quantites required for building large, iron-framed ships -- which is one reason they were not built until the 19th century.