Tricky question that could easy misguide many: ¿Which culture built the largest wooden sea worthy ships? In reality the biggest wooden ships were built long before any English sea supremacy were evident. Forget about XIX century Schooners or Atlantic Clippers...

The impressive Chinese Treasure Junks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wowUSz1rYZY

The largest wooden boats that had ever sailed the oceans were the Chinese Junks from the early XV century. The ones sailed by the great Chinese admiral Zheng He, during his around the world expeditions between 1405 thru 1433. While British were crawling out of 1000 years of obscurantism in medieval Europe, Ming dynasty Chinese sailors were circumnavigating the world in the largest ships ever built. The Chinese global expeditions are thought to have discovered America 70 years before Christopher Columbus; presumably they discovered Greenland and also Antarctica.

Admiral Zheng He´s 440 feet long super giant Junks, a type of vessel referred as "Treasure Boat" from 1421, here dwarfing Christopher Columbus "La Niña" from 1492.
http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~vaucher/Genealogy/Documents/Asia/Ships/ZhengHeShip.jpg

This is the big Tiller that was found from one of Zheng He "Treasure Boats" junks. The proportion of this piece could give a good indication of what may have been the colossal size of the ship.
http://www.cultural-china.com/chinaWH/images/exbig_images/e6ed9708f1988f97dc7ca1f6f5e01951.jpg

To corroborate the enormous size of these vessels we can rely on written accounts of European travelers that went to the East at the time, such as Ibn Battuta and Marco Polo. According to Ibn Battuta, who visited China in 1347:

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"…The Chinese vessels are of three kinds; large ships called chunks (junks), middle sized ones called zaws (dhows) and the small ones kakams. The large ships have anything from twelve down to three sails, which are made of bamboo rods plaited into mats. They are never lowered, but turned according to the direction of the wind; at anchor they are left floating in the wind.

Three smaller ones, the "half", the "third" and the "quarter", accompany each large vessel. These vessels are built in the towns of Zaytun and Sin-Kalan. The vessel has four decks and contains rooms, cabins, and saloons for merchants; a cabin has chambers and a lavatory, and can be locked by its occupants.

This is the manner after which they are made; two (parallel) walls of very thick wooden (planking) are raised and across the space between them are placed very thick planks (the bulkheads) secured longitudinally and transversely by means of large nails, each three ells in length. When these walls have thus been built the lower deck is fitted in and the ship is launched before the upper works are finished."

Ibn Battuta.
---/Quote---

Zheng He voyages.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K54hxWTlEZo

Zheng He fleet included 62 of these Treasure ships, they were used by the commander of the fleet and his deputies, had nine mast, 126 meters (416 ft) long and 51 meters (170 ft) wide. These ships weighed as much as 1,500 tons, by comparison, a modern ship of about 1,200 tons is just 60 meter (200 ft) long, and the ships Christopher Columbus sailed to the New World in 1492 were about 70-100 tons and 17 meter (55 ft) long. The Zheng He fleet was manned by over 27,000 crew members, with each Treasure Ship able to carry 1.000 passengers and manned by 500 sailors!

He commanded 7 fleets during a period of 28 years, sailing to 37 countries, the biggest naval expedition in history up to that time. The size of the fleet dwarfed all of the European navies combined. Most of the ships were built at the Dragon Bay shipyard near Nanjing, the remains of which can still be seen today.

Chinese Admiral Zheng He, a tall man, a eunuch and a Muslim from Yunnan who climbed to the highest ranks of the Chinese Navy, became the Admiral of the Chinese Fleet. He was the favorite of Ming emperor Yong Le and was given the command of the spectacular Chinese fleet on great voyages throughout the Indian Ocean and beyond.
http://images.stanzapub.com/readers/2009/05/07/he1zhenghehires_1.jpg
Source(s):
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Qa4DJbx80X...

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