Thanks. It took 300 man-years of labor (using modern power tools) to build the "replica" of Noah's ark; also, none of the critters on the islands SE of Asia can swim to or from the mainland, so those species could not have been on the ark. There was also no food supply for the critters; if food had been miraculously provided, it would have been mentioned (e.g., the miracle of manna was, from the account of the time after the Exodus). In the rabbinical sources other craft were on the water during The Deluge. Also, survivors of The Deluge could not light fires, possibly due to the sudden decline in oxygen (this is from I.V., who attributed The Deluge to the arrival of a stream, more like a bath, of hydrogen, which combined with much of the Earth's oxygen to produce a monstrous amount of rain), which ordinarily wouldn't be a problem if there were no survivors because they hadn't invented treading water yet. The origins given and there for various ancient neighbors of the Hebrews also is suggestive of no worldwide flood.
There are other flood stories from a number of parts of the world. They do not always speak of all the land being totally covered. However, we have seen one and two day storms recently that dropped 40 and 50 inches of rain. What if because of ancient vulcanism or meteor event(s) there were 40 days of such powerful rain. Calculating 40” per two days for 40 days gives over 65 vertical feet of water. That would sure drown a lot of people and animals and leave a very strong impression; which, as people do, would be exaggerated some more in the retelling.
Do you remember where or which cultures Velikovsky described when he made his hypotensis about the hydrogen stream/bath? It has been many years since I read his books, but I seem to recall he would list a number of odd facts occurring around the same time to serve as a source for his conjectures. I specifically remember him describing great masses of tangled together bones in the far north of our continent which I have also read described elsewhere, and which figures in the Firestone theory of north American meteor strike(s). This is one reason why I have found Firestone’s work so believable.