|
HISTORY
 HMS
Endeavour, also known as HM Bark Endeavour, was a British Royal
Navy research vessel commanded by Lieutenant James Cook on his
first voyage of discovery, to Australia and New Zealand from
1769 to 1771.
Launched in 1764 as the collier Earl of Pembroke, she was
purchased by the Navy in 1768 for a scientific mission to the
Pacific Ocean, and to explore the seas for the surmised Terra
Australis Incognita or "unknown southern land". Renamed and
commissioned as His Majesty's Bark the Endeavour, she departed
Plymouth in August 1768, rounded Cape Horn, and reached Tahiti
in time to observe the 1769 transit of Venus across the Sun. She
then set sail into the largely uncharted ocean to the south,
stopping at the Pacific islands of Huahine, Borabora, and
Raiatea to allow Cook to claim them for Great Britain. In
September 1769, she anchored off New Zealand, the first European
vessel to reach the islands since Abel Tasman's Heemskerck 127
years earlier. In April 1770, Endeavour became the first
seagoing vessel to reach the east coast of Australia, when Cook
went ashore at what is now known as Botany Bay.
Endeavour then sailed north along the Australian coast. She
narrowly avoided disaster after running aground on the Great
Barrier Reef, and was beached on the mainland for seven weeks to
permit rudimentary repairs to her hull. On 10 October 1770, she
limped into port in Batavia (now named Jakarta) in the Dutch
East Indies for more substantial repairs, her crew sworn to
secrecy about the lands they had discovered. She resumed her
westward journey on 26 December, rounded the Cape of Good Hope
on 13 March 1771, and reached the English port of Dover on 12
July, having been at sea for nearly three years.
Largely forgotten after her epic voyage, Endeavour spent the
next three years shipping Navy stores to the Falkland Islands.
Renamed and sold into private hands in 1775, she briefly
returned to naval service as a troop transport during the
American Revolutionary War and was scuttled in a blockade of
Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island in 1778. Her wreck has not been
precisely located, but relics, including six of her cannons and
an anchor, are displayed at maritime museums worldwide. A
replica of Endeavour was launched in 1994 and is berthed
alongside the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney
Harbour. The space shuttle Endeavour is named for the original
ship.
Endeavour features on the New Zealand fifty cent piece in
recognition of its significant place in the nation's history. |
