Captain Cook’s first ship was HM Bark ‘Endeavour’, a converted Whitby collier. Cook was intimately familiar with this type of vessel and chose one for his first voyage because it was robust enough to withstand a three year circumnavigation – a choice thoroughly vindicated by events. Australia’s National Maritime Museum in Sydney has a full scale working replica of the vessel (shamefully the UK does not). And it really is an exact replica – built by hand in Fremantle WA off the actual plans for Cook’s Endeavour which had survived in London (his ship was sold out of the Navy and was eventually scuttled in New England during the War of Independence.

Here she is with Sydney CBD in the background:

 

 

As ever, the complexity of the rig is staggering:

 

 

Cook & Banks had to share the Captain’s Cabin for three years. Unusually both men were well over six feet tall, and Banks had two greyhounds with him as well (which as dogs do, used his sleeping area while he slept on the floor of the main cabin). Here is the main Captain’s cabin, set out as if Banks were working on his botanical specimens and Cook on his cartography. The dogs’ boudoir is on the right where the red curtain can be seen:

 

 

doorlocks were made in the Isle of Man. The same company is still in business, and made exact replicas of the original locks it had supplied over two hundred years earlier:

 

 

Looking along the deck from the stern:

 

 

An amazing fully functional machine. She’s sailing down to Hobart for the biennial Wooden Boat Show in February; we hope to go for a sail on her there.

 

And that’s it. The Blog is back on track. More from festive Tasmania next as normal service is resumed.