HMS Endeavor, one of the most famous three-masted ships in maritime history, has it indeed been found? This oak-hulled boat, 32 meters long, piloted by the British James Cook, is famous for his exploration of the South Pacific seas between 1768 and 1771.
Significant new elements tend to support the hypothesis that theEndeavorCaptain James Cook’s famous boat, is indeed the wreck found by marine archaeologists near the American coast in 2016.
Cook’s expedition is a landmark in Australian history. It is not for nothing that replicas of the ship are on display there. The Australian National Maritime Museum, on which research into the wreck is partly based, has displayed a replica of the ship in Sydney Harbor since 1994. James Cook patiently mapped the coasts of both New Zealand and Australia.
To embark on this expedition to discover the Terra Australis were on board theEndeavor great scientists of the time. They will observe a rare passage of Venus between the Earth and the Sun, plant plants, list a number of living species… They spend three months observing life in Tahiti. They were the first Europeans to land in New Caledonia, the Sandwich Islands, Hawaii and, above all, the east coast of Australia. Several members of the crew will die of malaria in Jakarta before the return of theEndeavor in England in July 1771.
Accustomed to this type of boat, James Cook recommended its purchase to be used for this expedition sponsored by the British admiralty. Easy to handle, capable of sailing even in shallow drafts, theEndeavor could also be deliberately grounded to more easily load goods. It was, Cook judged, the perfect type of building to embark on an adventure.
Additional evidence
The identification of part of the ship’s bow and a pumping well on a wreck discovered off the coast of the United States provides, according to the Australian National Maritime Museum, additional evidence to confirm that it is indeed the remains of the boat piloted by the famous explorer who traveled the southern Pacific Ocean. They correspond perfectly to period documents, and a study of 40 plans concludes that the wreck and the HMS match Endeavor.
In February 2022, after a long examination of the debris discovered on the seabed, the museum suggested that it was indeed the famous boat. On the other hand, American experts were much less affirmative, with proof beyond a reasonable doubt continuing to be lacking. The Australians, however, affirm, while awaiting an overall report, that these new elements speak in favor of their thesis.
A remarkable epic
The legacy of the expedition led by James Cook is so strong in the imagination that at the end of the 20the century, NASA named one of its space shuttles in homage to the famous sailboat. The Space Shuttle Endeavor was launched into space for the first time in 1992; it was used until 2011.
In August 1768, HMS Endeavor had set sail from the port of Plymouth, England. In September, he was already in Brazil. In January, he rounded Cape Horn before reaching the Terra Australisas these little-known lands were then called.
After its scientific epic, at the time of the American War of Independence, theEndeavor, Cook’s wooden ship, was salvaged for military operations. A new name was given to it: Lord Sandwich. It was under this identity that he took part, as a troop transport boat, in the fights against the American revolutionaries. The ship was eventually scuttled and sank somewhere in the natural bay of Newport, Rhode Island. This is where a team of researchers claims to have found it in 2016.