Found, the wreck of the Endeavour Experts pinpoint US grave of Capt Cook’s ship
IT was an ignominious end for the doughty ship which had carried Captain Cook around the world to discover Australia.
HMS Endeavour was scuttled along with 12 others to blockade a port during the American War of Independence.
But, while its fate has been known for years, marine archaeologists have now pinpointed the wreck of Cook’s ship off the state of Rhode Island on the US east coast.
Experts with the Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project, or Rimap, said they have ‘narrowed the search for the Endeavour from a fleet of 13 vessels to five, now possibly to one or two sites’.
They hope to launch a salvage and excavation operation within the next 12 months.
The archaeologists say Endeavour was one of a fleet of ships deliberately sunk in Narragansett Bay during the independence war to create an underwater blockade against the American rebels’ French allies.
Kathy Abbass, director of Rimap, said ‘we can say we think we know which one it is’.
Kevin Sumption, director of the Australian National Maritime Museum, confirmed a ‘promising site’ had been located.
He said US divers were working to confirm whether one of five shipwrecks is the Endeavour by gathering timber samples for forensic examination.
Most of the scuttled ships were built with wood from America or India but the Endeavour was built in northern England, mainly with English oak. The ship earned its place in history when it set sail from Plymouth in August 1768 with Captain James Cook aboard.
In April 1770 it became the first European ship to reach the east coast of Australia when Cook arrived at what is now known as Botany Bay.
On the way he had also rounded Cape Horn, visited a string of Pacific islands and anchored off New Zealand.
The ship had to be repaired several times before making it back to Dover via the Indian Ocean and South Africa in July 1771.
A month after his return Captain Cook was promoted to the rank of Commander and by November 1771 had set sail for a second expedition – on a different ship.
He was killed on February 14, 1779, at Kealakekua Bay on Hawaii – stabbed with an iron dagger by a native chief after relations soured between his men and the locals.
By then his first ship was lying at the bottom of Narragansett Bay half a world away. Endeavour, built in 1764 in Whitby, North Yorkshire, had been bought by the Royal Navy to be used for a ‘scientific mission’ to the seas of ‘Terra Australis Incognita’ or the ‘unknown Southern land.’
But after Cook’s voyage, it was sold off in 1775 and by the American War of Independence had been relegated to the unglamorous role of troop transport.
It was scuttled along with the other ships to prevent the French fleet sailing into Newport harbour on August 4, 1778.