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Captain Cook’s Endeavour Found!?
“We know from its size, dimension and
these records that the
Lord Sandwich
was the
Endeavour
”, says Dr Kathy
Abbass, executive director of Rhode
Island Marine Archaeology Project
(RIMAP), which studies the area’s
maritime history.
“The American army was assembled on
the mainland and the French sent a fleet
to help,” says Abbass. “The British knew
they were at great risk, so they ordered
13 ships out to be scuttled in a line to
blockade the city. They were sunk in fairly
shallow waters.”
They now believe the fate of the historic
Endeavour
lies on the seabed alongside
the dozen other vessels that made up the
fleet. According to RIMAP, the wreckages
are spread across nine different sites
in Newport Harbour, and “one group
of 5 ships includes the
Lord Sandwich
,
formerly Captain James Cook’s
Endeavour.”
The RIMAP plans a more detailed
exploration of the site and “a more
intense study of each vessel’s structure
and its related artifacts”.
As we know, the HMS
Endeavour
was
the boat on which Captain James Cook
achieved the first recorded European
discovery of the east coast of Australia,
and the first circumnavigation of NZ.
hms
Endeavour
O
ne does not expect the HMS
Endeavour
nor the esteemed
Captain Cook to pop up in
modern day headlines, however
that’s where it was in early May. Both
print and TV news were heralding
that the remains of one of the most
famous ships in nautical history, the
HMS
Endeavour,
had been found in the
northeast US off the coast of Rhode
Island. This discovery could solve a
230-year-old mystery and end a long
debate surrounding the boat’s fate.
After Cook moved on to other sailing
vessels, the legendary
Endeavour
passed through several hands, and
was eventually renamed the HMS
Lord Sandwich,
after the first lord of
the admiralty at the time. The ship was
last seen in 1778, when it was being
used as a transport ship during the
American Revolution. It was believed
to have been scuttled by the
British in the same year, along
with other ships, as part of a
blockade leading up to the
Battle of Rhode Island.
THE MEETING
Painting by Paul Deacon
(See page 5 for more info about Paul)