Researchers with the Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project (RIMAP) have reportedly found the HMS Endeavour, the ship sailed by famous British Explorer James Cook which was sunk off the coast of Rhode Island while forming a blockade during the Revolutionary War.
According to AFP reports, the remains of the vessel were found along with the wreckage of five other ships off the coast of Newport Harbor, Rhode Island. That site is one of nine discovered by RIMAP, and the Endeavour is one of 13 sunken ships located by the project, reports indicate.
The ship, which was eventually renamed the Lord Sandwich, was used by Captain Cook when he and his crew discovered the East Coast of Australia in 1770, the Daily Mail said. After a three year voyage, it sailed back to England, where it was sold in 1775, repurchased by the British navy, and scuttled in 1778 during an effort to create a blockade during the Battle of Rhode Island.
Now, the remains of the vessel have apparently been located in the waters of Narragansett Bay by RIMAP, which analyzed historical shipping documents from the UK along with cutting-edge seabed mapping techniques to discover at total of 14 vessels. The group told the Daily Mail that it is “80 to 100 percent certain” that the Endeavour is among those sunken ships.
A recreation of the HMS Endeavour
The Endeavour is ‘One of the most important shipwrecks in world history’
In a statement, RIMAP said that it had “mapped 9 archaeological sites of the 13 ships that were scuttled in Newport Harbor in 1778 during the American Revolution,” and that one group of five ships “included the Lord Sandwich transport, formerly Captain James Cook’s Endeavour.”
“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 Endeavour,” they added, promising to reveal additional details of the find, including scans of the ships, on Wednesday. If possible, they hope to recover material from the wreckage and put it on public display.
Cook left England in 1768 in search of Australia, then known as the “unknown Southern Land,” the Daily Mail and New York Daily News said. He sailed the HMS Endeavour around Cape Horn in Africa and visited Tahiti, New Zealand and Australia, circumnavigating both the northern and southern islands of New Zealand and becoming the first ship captain reach to the eastern coast of Australia.
Cook was killed during a 1779 trip to the Sandwich Islands (now known as Hawaii), and his ship had been lost for more than two centuries. Now, on the eve of Rhode Island’s 240th birthday, the RIMAP team is expected to officially announce the location of what they called “one of the most important shipwrecks in world history.”
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Image credit: Wikimedia Commons
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