posted 05-02-2016 02:00 PM               

The ship was used during Cook's first voyage of exploration to Australia and New Zealand from 1769 to 1771, was later sold and renamed and was last seen in 1778 when it was scuttled during the American Revolution.

posted 05-02-2016 02:12 PM               

RIMAP to Announce Major Progress in the Search for 'The Lord Sandwich ex Endeavour'

The Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project (RIMAP) will announce recent research progress in the Search for the Lord Sandwich ex Endeavour at 10 a.m., Wednesday May 4 at the Rhode Island Historical Preservation and Heritage Commission (Old State House, 150 Benefit Street, Providence, RI).

RIMAP has mapped nine archaeological sites of the 13 ships that were scuttled in Newport Harbor in 1778, during the American Revolution. A recent Australian National Maritime Museum grant allowed RIMAP to locate historic documents in London that identify the groups of ships in that fleet of 13, and where each group was scuttled.

One group of five ships included the Lord Sandwich transport, formerly Capt. James Cook's Endeavour Bark. RIMAP now knows the general area of Newport Harbor where those five ships were scuttled, and in previous work had already mapped four of the sites there. A recent analysis of remote sensing data suggests that the fifth site may still exist, too. That means the Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project now has an 80 to 100% chance that the Lord Sandwich is still in Newport Harbor, and because the Lord Sandwich was Capt. Cook's Endeavour, that means RIMAP has found her, too.

On May 4, RIMAP will describe its 2016 plans to confirm the fifth shipwreck in the limited study area, and will outline what must be done in the future to determine which of the five sites there is which ship. The next phase of the archaeological investigation will require a more intense study of each vessel's structure and its related artifacts.

However, before that next phase may begin, there must be a proper facility in place to conserve, manage, display, and store the waterlogged material removed from the archaeological sites. Therefore RIMAP has begun the capital campaign to create the facility to satisfy those technical requirements and allow the intense archaeological fieldwork to begin.

The ships in Newport were scuttled in the days leading up to the August 1778 Battle of Rhode Island in Portsmouth, and RIMAP hopes to build its facility at Butts Hill Fort, the center of the American line during that Battle.

May 4, 2016 is Rhode Island's 240th birthday because it is the anniversary of the Rhode Island Colonial legislature's disavowal of loyalty to the King of England on May 4, 1776. That was two months before all the colonies issued the formal Declaration of Independence. Tourism related to Rhode Island's magnificent history is a major economic driver for our state, and the submerged cultural resources here are an as yet undeveloped aspect of that industry.

All of the 13 ships lost in Newport during the Revolution are important to American history, but it will be a national celebration in Australia when RIMAP identifies the Lord Sandwich ex Endeavour. So for RIMAP to be closing in one of the most important shipwrecks in world history, for that ship to be found in Newport, and for it to have an international reputation, should be an intriguing birthday gift for all of Rhode Island.

The May 4 event is open to the public, and RIMAP representatives will discuss the "Search for Endeavour," there will be summaries of past research, and the opportunity to ask questions about future plans. That day graphics and other materials related to this effort will also be placed on this website for public review. ​

RIMAP's public education program includes two classes the following Saturday, on May 7, that are related to the "Search for Endeavour." The morning class will describe how local shipwreck preserves may protect these historic sites while at the same time share them with the public, and the afternoon class will show how the original Star Trek story was based on Capt. Cook's 18th-century exploits (Cook = Kirk and Endeavour = Enterprise, etc.).

posted 05-02-2016 02:31 PM               

Even better - reward higher level donors with lucites containing artifacts from the ship itself. Obviously they would need to incorporate items not of immediate interest to the archaeologists and not usable in the final display.

posted 05-03-2016 07:48 AM               

"A block of wood from Cook's Endeavour is supplied by the Marine Museum of the Newport Historical Society in Rhode Island to fly aboard the Apollo 15 command module."

"The Apollo 15 crew took a small block of wood from the sternpost of Captain Cook's Endeavour.."

As an aside, on May 7 1992, on the maiden flight (STS-49) of Space Shuttle Orbiter Endeavour (OV-105), a wooden trunnel was flown aboard and now resides in the replica sailing ship Endeavour.

posted 05-04-2016 10:49 AM               

In January of this year, Abbass found a document in the British National Archives that indicates Lord Sandwich was among a group five vessels scuttled in a very specific area of the harbor.

RIMAP has located and mapped four Revolutionary War-era vessels in this specific area, and has a remote-sensing "target" that indicates there may likely be a fifth wreck as well.

"We're closing in it," says Abbass. "If we hadn't found that document we'd still be saying it's one of 13 [wrecks] or one of nine. Now we can say its one of five."

However, divers have not yet visited the target to verify that it is indeed a shipwreck and if so, if it's from the right period in history.

posted 05-06-2016 06:57 PM               

The Nashua Telegraph reported in June 1971 on the stern post section to be flown.

In an article in "The Green Light: Bulletin of the Point Association of Newport Rhode Island" from June 1985, National Geographic's Kenneth Weaver is quoted:

Appropriately Apollo 15 is carrying a Cook Memento — a small block of wood — in a compartment of the command module. It is a piece of the sternpost of Cook's ENDEAVOUR, courtesy of the Marine Museum of the Newport Historical Society.

Source: Weaver, Kenneth (Feb 1972), "Apollo 15 Explores the Mountains of the Moon", The National Geographic, pp. 230–265.

Robert Duce, dean of the University of Rhode Island's Graduate School of Oceanography, presented Brandenstein with Endeavour's first "payload," part of the sternpost recovered from the shuttle's namesake, a sailing ship commanded by British explorer Capt. James Cook between 1768 and 1771.

The centuries-old remnant will be carried into orbit during Endeavour's first mission next March, a daring satellite repair mission featuring three spacewalks.

As the British captain sailed across the South Pacific in 1768, he may have wondered about sailing among the stars with which he marked his journey, but he probably never dreamed a spacecraft that would streak through the heavens above would be christened after the ship on which decks he stood.

The spirit of Cook will travel with the Space Shuttle Endeavour on its maiden voyage symbolically represented in by a small piece of stern post from Cook's Endeavour, on loan to NASA from the Graduate School of Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island.

On wooden sailing vessels, the stern post was the vertical piece at the aft end of the ship, usually supporting the rudder. The particular piece of wood going with the STS-49 crew was presented to the university in 1976 at the christening ceremony for its research vessel Endeavor.

The stern post section will fly as part of the Official Flight Kit in a middeck locker.

According to this tour guide:

The HMB Endeavour is the official "replica" of the original of Captain Cook's ship, the HMS Endeavour.

The HMB Endeavour was built in Fremantle, Western Australia as a bicentennial gift to Australia from the Bond Corporation and is universally regarded as the most authentic replica afloat.

The center sternpost in the main cabin contains a wooden "trunnel" surrounded by a brass ring that was originally carried aboard the US Space Shuttle "Endeavour" during its maiden mission into space in 1992 by its commander Daniel C. Brandenstein. When Daniel visited the Endeavour when it was built in Fremantle, he hammered this trunnel into the sternpost to unit the sailing ship's voyage with the space shuttle's mission.

posted 06-14-2016 04:43 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Robert Pearlman:
Is the Apollo 15 flown HMS Endeavour wood on display somewhere today?

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posted 06-14-2016 09:32 AM               

Dave was actually more surprised that anyone knew about this long forgotten aspect of space exploration history. He was pleased that someone both did know and was interested in knowing more about an aspect of history that few people ever ask him about. I told him that more than a few cS readers would be very interested to learn what did happen to the flown wood section!

posted 09-24-2018 10:57 AM               

Now, thanks to a combination of archival research and deep diving, archaeologists with RIMAP and the Australian National Maritime Museum have narrowed their search to a single shipwreck they say is probably the ship that once carried Cook and Banks to Australia.

Since eighteenth-century shipbuilders recorded the specifications of their projects in detail, archaeologists have spent some time on the bottom measuring the few timbers that remain buried beneath the silt and comparing those dimensions to what we know about HMS Endeavour's construction. Because there is some historical information about where the Lord Sandwich was scuttled, archaeologists could also eliminate ships of the right size that weren't in the right place, like a shipwreck dubbed RI 2119, which was briefly in the running last year.

Divers also collected samples of the wood from timbers on all five wrecks. Historical records list all 13 of the ships that were scuttled in 1778, and tracking those ships through trails of documents reveals that many of them were built in either India or North America, with timber from those places. But HMS Endeavour was built at a shipyard in the north of England, mostly of English oak, so oak timbers on a ship of the right size in the right place also provided a significant clue.