HM Bark Endeavour

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HM Bark Endeavour was a small 18th century British sailing ship, famous for being the vessel commanded by Lt. (later Captain) James Cook, on his first voyage of discovery to the Pacific Ocean. Image:Endeavour replica in Cooktown harbour.jpg

1 Construction and statistics
2 Purchased by the Admiralty
3 Cook's voyage
4 Later history
5 Replica vessel
6 References
7 See also
8 External links
9 Named after Endeavour

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Construction and statistics

HM Bark Endeavour was originally a merchant collier named 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 (397 tons).

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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 Template:Fact. 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 subsequent secret orders; namely, to search out the southern Pacific for signs of the postulated continent, Terra Australis Incognita (the unknown land of the south) Template:Fact.

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.

Her commander was the recently-appointed R.N. Lieutenant, James Cook, who had made a reputation as a skilled navigator and cartographer during his earlier postings in Quebec and Newfoundland during the Seven Years' War.

Other notable members on the expedition were the naturalists Sir Joseph Banks from England, Dr. Herman Spöring from Finland (after whome in 1769 James Cook named the Spöring Island on the coast of New Zealand) , Daniel Solander from Sweden (the Oxford University honoured the Swede with a Doctorate of Law after this expedition) Template:Fact and the English astronomer Charles Green, who was to be in charge of making the astronomical observations.

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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 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 Maori 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 by the botanists Joseph Banks, Daniel Solander and Herman Spöring.

Image:Endeavour IB.jpg

For the next four months Cook charted the coast of Australia, until the ship ran aground on the Great Barrier Reef. After lightening the ship as much as possible, she was re-floated by an incoming tide, but sustained considerable damage. She was careened on the beach of a river estuary, now named the Endeavour River, where the modern town of Cooktown is located, and spent the next seven weeks undergoing repairs.

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. On this voyage Cook became the first captain to calculate his longitudinal position with accuracy. He used a complex mathematical formula developed in the 1760s.

Cook was also the first to substantially reduce scurvy among his crew, a serious danger on long voyages. He lost nobody to the disease and in the context of the time, this was an astonishing achievement on such a voyage.

In 1772 Cook, now a captain, made two subsequent voyages of exploration in HMS Resolution, sailing from south polar ice to north polar ice, until he and four of his marines, were killed on his return to the Hawaiian Islands in 1779 owing to a mutual misunderstanding of the respective cultures.

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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.

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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 visted Whitby in 1997 and left in 2003.

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References

{{cite web

| first = Malcolm 
| authorlink = http://stickerman1.tripod.com/
| year = 2005
| url = http://stickerman1.tripod.com/barkendeavour.htm
| title = HM Bark Endeavour
| accessdate = March 14
| accessyear = 2006

}}

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