OSLO — As maritime fender-benders go, this one couldn’t help attracting attention: Noah’s ark crashed into a Norwegian Coast Guard patrol boat in the Port of Oslo on Friday morning.

It was not, of course, the actual ark, but one of two reconstructions that a Dutch carpenter named Johan Huibers painstakingly built over seven years, based on the biblical description. More than a million people have visited the replicas to see domesticated animals like llamas, ponies and rabbits, and to hear, as Mr. Huibers intended, a message of God’s love.

The smaller of the arks was being towed on Friday when the crew lost control, which led to the collision. No animals were on board and no one was injured, but the ark’s wooden cladding was damaged. A small crane on the patrol boat was also damaged, Lt. Rune Svartsund, a coast guard spokesman, said.

Ole Herman Kjernsby, the head of travel at Stena Line, a ferry company based in Oslo, said his staff members did not witness the accident but could see the damage to the ark afterward, including what he called “a huge rift” in the side.