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HM Bark Endeavour

HM Bark Endeavour:Endeavour replica in Cooktown harbour
Endeavour replica in Cooktown harbour
Career
Built:Whitby, North Yorkshire.
Launched:1768
Fate:Sold in 1775, beyond that, unknown
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:—

HMB 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.


Contents

Construction and statistics

His Majesty's 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).

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 [citation needed]. 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,[1] 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, going so far as to say he would rather cut off his right hand than sign a commission trusting one of His Majesty's ships to a non-seaman! 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. (As commander of the ship he was naturally called captain by those onboard.) Dalrymple took this disappointment badly.

Other notable members on the expedition were the naturalists Sir Joseph Banks from England, Dr. Herman Spöring from Finland, Daniel Solander from Sweden (the Oxford University honoured the Swede with a Doctorate of Law after this expedition) [citation needed] 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 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 by the botanists Joseph Banks, Daniel Solander and Herman Spöring.

HM Bark Endeavour:Endeavour replica rigging detail
Enlarge
Endeavour replica rigging detail

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[2] buoys were attached with the intention of retrieving them later, but that proved impractical. (The guns and ballast were found in 1969, see recoveries below.) 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 (it too was found in 1969, below).

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).

HM Bark Endeavour:An 1893 chart showing the Endeavour<div/>'s track
Enlarge
An 1893 chart showing the Endeavour<div/>'s track

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

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.

Scurvy

Much has been made of Cook's success avoiding scurvy on the voyage. Although the efficacy of oranges and lemons had been known for some 175 years (since Hawkins in 1593), they could not always be obtained and the disease was not well understood and was a very serious problem on long voyages.

The Admiralty Sick and Hurt Board gave Cook a number of believed anti-scorbutics, based mainly on ideas of Dr David McBride. These included malt (which McBride favoured), concentrated orange juice, and sauerkraut. Malt is now known to be ineffective, having barely a trace of vitamin C; and concentrating juices by heating destroys much of their vitamin C. Sauerkraut is a good source of vitamin C and was apparently new to a shipboard diet.

Sailors of the day were notoriously against innovation, and at first the men would not eat the sauerkraut. Cook used a little trick, one he'd never known to fail. He ordered it served to himself and the officers, and left an option for crew who wanted some. Within a week of seeing their superiors set a value on it the demand was so great a ration had to be instituted. (Cook's journal 13 April 1769.)

Cook's general approach was essentially empirical, encouraging as broad a diet as circumstances permitted, and collecting such greens as could be had when making landfall. All onboard ate the same food, with Cook specifically dividing equally anything that could be divided (and indeed recommending that practice to any commander – journal 4 August 1770).

Two cases of scurvy did occur on board, astronomer Charles Green and the Tahitian man Tupia were treated, but Cook was able to proudly record that upon reaching Batavia he had "not one man upon the sick list" (journal 15 October 1770), unlike so many voyages that reached that port with much of the crew suffering illness.

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 [3].

Endeavour Reef recoveries

In 1886 the Working Men's Progress Association of Cooktown wanted to recover the cannons Cook had left at Endeavour Reef when grounded there, for a proposed memorial. They offered a £300 reward but searches that year and the next failed to find anything. Further later searches in 1966, 1967 and 1968 were unsuccessful too.[2]

In 1969 a search using a sophisticated magnetometer designed by Virgil Kaufman from the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences found the abandoned cannons, and iron ballast, near the reef. Pinpointing the grounding narrowed down the search for the lost bower anchor too. Seven of the journal keepers had it set to the west, Cook's log and journal put it to the south, but apparently a misreading of Cook's account made the searchers believe it was universally described as westward. An area in that direction was marked out for passes with the magnetometer. By chance while turning it around outside the search area an anomaly was detected, which turned out to be the anchor, to the south, where Cook described.

Conservation work on the cannons was undertaken by the Australian National Maritime Museum and one is on display there.[3] The anchor and another cannon are displayed at the James Cook Historical Museum in Cooktown[4] Those items are all long-term loans from the National Museum of Australia.[5]

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 in 1997 and left in 2003.

References

  1. ^ [http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/14423 A General History and Collection of Voyagesand Travels, Vol. 12], available freely at Project Gutenberg, editor Robert Kerr's introduction footnote 3
  2. ^ a b Ray Parkin, H. M. Bark Endeavour, Miegunyah Press, second edition, 2003, ISBN 0-522-85093-6
  3. ^ The Vernon Anchors and HMB Endeavour Cannon, information sheet at the Australian National Maritime Museum
  4. ^ James Cook Historical Museum page at the National Trust Queensland
  5. ^ National Museum of Australia annual reports 2002/3[1] and 2003/4[2] appendix 5 outward loans

See also

Named after Endeavour

Categories


Articles with unsourced statements | Barques | Exploration ships | Royal Navy ships | Sailboat names

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