The Australian National Maritime Museum has confirmed that James Cook’s HMS Endeavour, famously used to navigate the South Pacific, was shipwrecked off the Northeast coast of the United States, revealing that the timbers traced from a wreckage near Newport provide overwhelming evidence to support its claims.
In a final report, the museum’s “definitive statement” is the most significant discovery in modern Australian history and has major significance for New Zealand, the Pacific Islands, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
“This final report is the culmination of 25 years of detailed and meticulous archaeological study on this important vessel,” Museum director Daryl Karp said. ‘It has involved underwater investigation in the US and extensive research in institutions across the globe.”
“This final report marks our definitive statement on the project.”
Experts reached their conclusions after comparing the sunken ship with historical plans of the Endeavour (later named The Lord Sandwich and sent to the United States). They discovered that timbers on the ship’s bow corresponded with the locations of the Endeavour’s main and fore masts.
Measurements from the wreck also correlated with those taken during a 1768 survey of Cook’s ship. Furthermore, analysis of the wood revealed it had European origins, consistent with records of the Endeavour being repaired in 1776, several years after the expedition. Collectively, they represented a ‘preponderance of evidence’ that the Newport wreck was indeed the Endeavour.
‘The timbers are British timbers,” according to Australian National Martime Museum archaeologist, Kieran Hosty. “The size of all the timber scantlings is almost identical to Endeavour, and I’m talking within millimetres – not inches, but millimetres.”
“The stem scarf is identical, absolutely identical. This stem scarf is also a unique feature – we’ve gone through a whole bunch of 18th-century ship plans, and we can’t find anything else like it,” the report said.
The claims come despite the Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project (RIMAP) – the lead partner in the 25 year old research project – previously pushing back on claims made about the ship, alleging that the early identification was “premature,” a “breach of contract” and blaming “Australian emotions and politics.” However, experts from the Australian National Maritime Museum have seen enough.
“The Lord Sandwich was intentionally scuttled – it was sunk on purpose as a block ship,” according to archaeologist James Hunt, who, with Hosty, studies the positions of the surviving pump-shaft stump and pump-well partitions with archival documentation. “The chances of finding artifacts that would provide an immediate identification, such as a bell, were very unlikely. And that’s because anything valuable would have been stripped of that ship before it was sunk.”
“We’ll never find anything on this site that screams Endeavour. You’ll never find a sign saying ‘Cook was here,’ Hosty said. “We will never see a ship’s bell with Endeavour crossed out and Lord Sandwich inscribed on it. ‘We’ve got a whole series of things pointing to RI 2394 as being HMB Endeavour.”
Just 15% of the vessel remains, with researchers now focused on preservation.
Initially launched in 1764 as the Earl of Pembroke, Britain’s Royal Navy renamed Endeavour in 1768 and prepared it for a significant scientific voyage to the Pacific. The HMS Endeavour was initially built by a merchant collier named Earl of Pembroke to carry coal. She was launched in 1764 from Whitby, England and constructed from Yorkshire oak, known for producing rugged and high-quality timber. Her hull, internal floors, and futtocks were built from traditional white oak, her keel and stern post from elm, and her masts from pine and fir.
The ship was renamed the Endeavour in 1768 by Britain’s Royal Navy and prepared for a significant scientific voyage to the Pacific. From 1768 to 1771, it sailed the South Pacific, primarily to record the transit of Venus in Tahiti in 1769. Captain Cook then sailed it around the South Pacific, searching for “the Great Southern Land” and charting the coast of New Zealand and Australia’s eastern coastline before claiming the land for Great Britain on 22 August 1770.
The Endeavour was then sold to private owners and deliberately sunk in 1778 by British forces during the American War of Independence. A year later, Captain Cook was killed in Hawaii during his third Pacific voyage, ten years before the first fleet arrived in New South Wales to establish a British colony.
In 2019, the Australian Government gave the museum $6.7 million so its replica of Endeavour could circumnavigate the country, stopping at 39 different spots along the way in recognition of the 250-year-old voyage. Then Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison initially referred to the voyage as a “re-enactment” but later clarified that he only referred to the ship “retracing” Captain Cook’s course along Australia’s east coast. He said it would offer Australians insight into the voyage as well as the experiences of Indigenous Australians.
