 Endeavour replica in Cooktown harbour | |
| Career | |
|---|---|
| Built: | Whitby, North Yorkshire. |
| Launched: | 1768 |
| Fate: | Sold in 1775, beyond that, unknown; replica built 1988-1994 |
| General Characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 400 tonnes (397 tons) |
| Length: | 32.3 m (106 ft) |
| Beam: | 8.9 m (29 ft) |
| Draught: | — ft (— m) |
| Type: | Bark |
| Hull: | Wood |
| Propulsion: | Sail |
| Speed: | — |
| Range: | — |
| Complement: | — |
| Armament: | — |
Construction and statistics[]
His Majesty's Bark Endeavour was originally a merchant collier named Earl of Pembroke (after Henry Herbert, 10th Earl of Pembroke), whose construction was completed by early 1768 at Whitby, North Yorkshire. She was ship-rigged, and sturdily built with a capacious hold. Despite not being very fast, her flat-bottomed hull was well-suited to sailing in shallow waters and more importantly for her proposed use: she was, like other colliers of the north-east coast of England, designed to be beached. Her overall length was 32.3 m (keel 27.7 m), beam 8.9 m, and she weighed 400 tonnes.
Purchased by the Admiralty[]
In February of 1768 the Royal Society of London petitioned King George III to finance a scientific expedition to the Pacific Ocean. The expedition's ostensible purpose was to study and observe the 1769 transit of Venus across the sun (in concert with several other observations to be made from different locations). However, a more pragmatic reason was to be relayed to her captain by the Admiralty in additional instructions; namely, to search out the southern Pacific for signs of the postulated continent, Terra Australis Incognita (Unknown southern land).
The mission approved, the newly-built ship was purchased by the Royal Navy for the sum of £2307 5s. 6d. and assigned for use in the Society's expedition. She was renamed Endeavour after a major refit at Deptford on the River Thames in 1768, her improvements including caulking the hull and adding a third deck to prepare her for her new role as an exploration vessel. Classified by the Navy as a bark, she was known as Endeavour Bark to distinguish her from another Endeavour in the Royal Navy. She transported 94 people on her first voyage. This 18th century use of the term 'bark' should not be confused with the barques of the later 19th and early 20th century.
Alexander Dalrymple from the Royal Society was first proposed for command of the voyage, but he made it a condition that he be given a commission with rank of captain, since otherwise the crew would not be subject to naval discipline under him. First Lord of the Admiralty Edward Hawke refused - Hawke may well have had in mind a recent case of Dr Halley who was given such a commission and the sailors refused to recognise his authority.
The impasse was broken by Philip Stephens proposing James Cook who had done good work as a surveyor in Newfoundland and Labrador. The admiralty board accepted this and promoted Cook to the rank of lieutenant on 25 May, 1768.
Other notable members on the expedition were the naturalists Sir Joseph Banks from England, Dr. Herman Spöring from Finland, Daniel Solander from Sweden and the English astronomer Charles Green, who was to be in charge of making the astronomical observations.
Cook's voyage[]
The voyage departed Plymouth on August 8, 1768, and took them to the Madeira Islands, along the west coast of Africa and across the Atlantic Ocean to South America, arriving in Rio de Janeiro on November 13, 1768. The next leg rounded Cape Horn into the South Pacific and on to Tahiti, where she remained for the next three months while preparations were made for observing the transit of Venus.
Her ostensible mission now completed, she continued with her "unannounced" tasks of charting the Southern Hemisphere. The Endeavour sailed from Tahiti to New Zealand, where she spent the next six months surveying and mapping the coast under constant harassment from the Māori population. From New Zealand she moved west to the coast of Australia, sighting land on April 19, 1770. On April 29, Cook and crew made their first landfall on the continent, at a place now known as Kurnell. At first Cook bestowed the name Stingaree (Stingray) Bay to the inlet after the many such creatures found there; this was later changed to Botanist Bay and finally Botany Bay after the unique specimens retrieved there.
For the next four months Cook charted the coast of Australia, until the ship ran aground on the Great Barrier Reef.
Endeavour Reef[]
Just before 11pm on the evening of 10 June 1770 the ship struck a reef, today called Endeavour Reef, within the Great Barrier Reef. The part they struck stands up steeply from the seabed, so casting the lead had shown 20 fathoms (36 metres) of water right up to the point of striking.
With the sails immediately taken down, the coasting anchor was set out and an attempt made to pull the ship back off the reef, unsuccessfully. Because it was already around high tide the only option was to lighten the ship to float her off, so iron and stone ballast, spoiled stores, and the ships guns were thrown overboard, and the ship's water (drinking water) pumped out. The guns were not simply discarded; Sydney Parkinson records buoys were attached with the intention of retrieving them later, but that proved impractical. (The guns and ballast were found in 1969.) Parkinson also notes that every man on board took turns on the pumps, including Cook, Banks, and the officers.
With about 40 or 50 tons lightened, by Cook's reckoning, on the high tide the next morning a further attempt was made to pull the ship free, but again unsuccessfully. In the afternoon the longboat carried out the two large bower anchors, and block and tackles were put on a total 5 anchors now set, ready to try again on the evening high tide. The ship started to take on water through the damage from the reef, and though the leak would certainly increase once off the reef Cook decided to risk that. At about 10:20pm the ship floated with the tide and was successfully drawn off. The anchors were retrieved, except for the small bower which could not be freed.
The leak increased with the ship off the reef, and the three working pumps were manned. A mistake happened in sounding the depth of water in the hold when a new man took over and measured from the outside plank where his predecessor had used the ceiling (the top of the cross-beams of the hull). The difference was about 18 inches so the new man's call made it seem the leak had gained on the pumps that much in just a short time, sending a wave of fear through the ship. As soon as the mistake was realized the relief acted like a charm and with redoubled efforts the pumps kept ahead of the leak.
The prospects if the ship sank were grim. The typical understatement in the journals of the seamen make it easy to underestimate the danger, only in Banks is there a taste of it. For a start the ship was miles from shore and the boats could not carry everyone (being made for work, not as lifeboats) so many would surely drown. And those who survived would be left unarmed and without food in an unknown land. Banks noted the calm efficiency of the crew in the face of danger, contrary to stories he'd heard of seamen turning to plunder and refusing command in such circumstances.
Midshipman Jonathon Munkhouse proposed fothering the ship, having been on a merchant ship which used the technique successfully. He was entrusted with supervising the task, sewing bits of oakum and wool into an old sail which was drawn under the ship, the theory being suction would draw those material to the leak and plug it. This worked better than any hoped and soon the pumps could be stopped and very little water came in.
They proceeded north looking for a harbour to make repairs and on the afternoon of 13 June came to Endeavour River, as Cook later named it. Strong winds prevented the ship getting across the bar until the afternoon of 17 June. There they careened her and made repairs to the hull. A piece of coral the size of a man's fist had sliced clean through the planks of the hull, and broken off, wedged there. It was fortunate it stuck, because (on Parkinson's reckoning at least) an open hole that size would in all probability have sunk the ship.
With repairs made and after a delay waiting for the wind they were able to set off again on the afternoon of 3 August. The careening hadn't got the ship completely out of the water, so only a limited examination of the very bottom had been possible, but it seemed sound enough. When they later reached Batavia (9 November) it turned out some planks were damaged to within 1/8 inch (3 millimetres) of being cut through. It was a "surprise to every one who saw her bottom how we had kept her above water" as Cook said (though doing more at Endeavour River may not have been practical anyway).
Homeward[]
She turned for home arriving, after several other stops, on July 11, 1771. Cook's first voyage in Endeavour is of historical importance because of its contributions to the world's knowledge of seamanship and navigation, as well as geography.
Later history[]
In 1773 the British Admiralty fitted out Endeavour as a store ship and finally sold her in 1775 for £615. After that point there is much doubt as to her fate. One account has her sold to the French in 1790 and renamed La Liberté, finally running aground in 1794, near Newport, Rhode Island, USA. Another version has her moored as a hulk on the River Thames near Woolwich in 1825. Yet another version has Endeavour returned to the coal trade in 1775 and grounded at Rhode Island in 1790. There is little hard evidence to support any one of these versions.
A Reuters article published on May 16, 2006 seems to indicate the possible presence of the Endeavour within Rhode Island's state waters; it was reportedly sunk in 1778, bearing the later name Lord Sandwich, according to the records of archeologists with the Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project .
Replica vessel[]
In January 1988, to commemorate the bicentenary of European settlement in Australia, work began in Fremantle, Western Australia on a replica of Endeavour. Financial difficulties delayed completion until April 1994. She then embarked on her own world trip, calling at many ports along the way. After a long voyage the ship is alongside at the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney.
The ship first visited Whitby, the original Endeavor's home port in England, in 1997 and left in 2003.