HMS Endeavour Reconstruction...Sydney, Australia

HMS Endeavour in Oil. Courtesy of ModelShipmaster.com
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. In 1994, the reconstruction was built in Darling Harbour, Sydney, Australia. It is attached to the Australian National Maritime Museum which I visited last year.


It was a rather gloomy day, hot and humid, but the weather forecast said it was supposed to clear up. I bought a ticket and headed on deck...




There was a designated direction to go onboard Endeavour, so I immediately headed below...


Where I was met a-mid-ships and listened to a story I was all too familiar with. "This is where the midshipmen would have slept, because they were a-mid-ships men." Given that I myself had once been a midshipman, I asked how many midshipmen had been aboard, but the guide in that section didn't know. He sent me on aft to the Great Cabin to speak to one of the riggers that had not only helped build the reconstruction, but sailed it when it left Sydney on its 'round-the-world tours.




Once in the Great Cabin, where the Captain had his quarters, and where the officers and dignitaries would have dined with Captain Cook, the rigger pointed out the details of the room, and proceeded to answer my question. There had been four midshipmen on Endeavour. They all had illustrious careers, and the least among them made Post-Captain. One of the bunch even made it to the Admiralty. Serving under Captain Cook was quite an auspicious start for those young men, even if they didn't know it at the time.

If you look closely at the center of the image, under the "8" and under the rope running about knee high around the Great Cabin, you will see what appears to be a round hole. That hole has inside of it a piece of wood from, I believe, a plank of the original HMS Endeavour, and was carried by its namesake, the Shuttle Endeavor, in its first flight into space. The exact location of the majority of the wreck of HMS Endeavour is unknown. It was sunk near Newport, Rhode Island during a blockade of the fledgling United States of America during the Revolutionary War in 1778. The third lieutenant in Captain Cook's original crew had been an American, tying the ship to England, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States of America.


You can see the Sydney skyline, complete with Sydney Tower, out the windows of the Great Cabin.

When I popped back up on deck, the sky had cleared, and I snapped this awesome picture of the Royal Navy flag flying in the breeze.



Next time in the travel and history sections, the mighty metal warships of the Royal Australian Navy and a selection of photos from the Australian National Maritime Museum's Naval section and the Royal Australian Naval Heritage Centre.