HMB Endeavour Shipwreck Report
The Locating HMB Endeavour Final Report, released this week, is a detailed culmination of physical evidence, historical cross-analysis, and comparative shipwreck studies gathered over a quarter of a century. It includes comprehensive archaeological site plans, timber sample analyses, and scantling measurements that align with eighteenth-century British shipbuilding techniques.
Notably, the report contrasts RI 2394 with dozens of other known wrecks, demonstrating that the structure’s size, material composition, and construction methods match those documented for the Endeavour.
It also incorporates archival research from multiple international institutions and credits collaborative work with the Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project (RIMAP), whose own documentation of artefacts helped bolster key identifications.
The report is a significant contribution to the global field of maritime archaeology—setting a benchmark for how underwater cultural heritage can be rigorously identified and interpreted.
Beneath the Waters of Rhode Island: The Long Voyage Home of James Cook’s Endeavour
After 25 years of underwater archaeology, forensic timber analysis, historical cross-referencing, and international collaboration, the Australian National Maritime Museum has delivered what it calls its “definitive statement” on one of the most famous sailing vessels in maritime history.
According to the museum’s newly released Final Report, the wreck resting in Newport Harbor, Rhode Island—known until now only as RI 2394—is indeed the remains of HM Bark Endeavour, later renamed Lord Sandwich.
For those drawn to the romance and rigour of tall ships, the story of the Endeavour is one of transformation, purpose, and ultimate sacrifice. First launched as the Earl of Pembroke in 1764, she was a collier—wide of beam, flat of bottom, and built for carrying coal. But the Royal Navy saw potential in her simple lines and bought the vessel in 1768 for a very different task: she would carry scientists and sailors halfway around the world on a voyage to the Pacific.
Her mission was to observe the Transit of Venus from Tahiti in 1769—an astronomical event expected to yield data that could help determine the size of the solar system. But once the celestial measurements were taken, the ship was instructed to press further into the Pacific, charting lands seen and unseen.
It was during this voyage that her commander, James Cook, mapped the coastlines of Aotearoa (New Zealand) and the eastern shore of what is now Australia. The Endeavour has since occupied a central place in Pacific maritime history—not for “discovery,” but for its enduring legacy as a ship that sailed into lives already lived, coastlines already named, and histories already unfolding.
What became of her after those famous years was less well known—until now.
Section of French archival map entitled Prise de Newport par d’Estaing 1778 2 Embossage de Ternay à Newport 1780 Map reproduction courtesy Norman B Leventhal Map & Education Center Boston Public Library
Following her Pacific expedition, the Endeavour was decommissioned and sold to a private owner, renamed Lord Sandwich, and put to work in more mundane roles: shipping goods to the Baltic, ferrying supplies, and later, carrying soldiers for the British military during the American War of Independence.
By 1778, she was moored in Newport Harbor, Rhode Island, serving as a prison hulk for captured American revolutionaries. That August, with French warships entering the harbor to support the American fight for independence, British forces scuttled Lord Sandwich and four other vessels to block the channel.
The ship that had once traced the rim of the world was sent to the bottom, forgotten by most, just months before James Cook himself was killed in Hawaii.
The identification of the wreck has taken decades. Maritime archaeologists from the Australian National Maritime Museum have been diving the site since the late 1990s.
In 2022, they issued a preliminary report suggesting that RI 2394 was the Endeavour.
Now, the museum’s Final Report brings further evidence to support that conclusion: detailed comparisons between the ship’s scantlings—timber dimensions used in construction—and those of other 18th-century British vessels, along with timber analyses pointing to the European oak and elm typical of Royal Navy construction, rather than the hodgepodge of native woods used in colonial American ships.
While the Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project (RIMAP), which has also studied the site extensively, remains cautious—acknowledging RI 2394 as a leading candidate but not ruling out other possible wrecks—the Australian museum stands firm.
As Director and CEO Daryl Karp AM said, “This Final Report is the culmination of 25 years of detailed and meticulous archaeological study… underwater investigation in the US and extensive research in institutions across the globe.”
Sonar image of Newport Harbors seabed showing the locations of eighteenth-century shipwreck sites including RI 2394 Sonar image courtesy of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
This isn’t just the story of a shipwreck—it’s a narrative about how history is built plank by plank. The evidence goes beyond speculation; it’s structural. The vessel’s tonnage, materials, and measurements match what we know about the Endeavour.
Irini Malliaros from the Silentworld Foundation uses a water-induction dredge to excavate part of the midships section of Endeavour while museum maritime archaeologist Kieran Hosty uses a torch to illuminate the work area Image James Hunter
What remains on the seafloor in Newport isn’t simply the ghost of a British transport, but a sailing ship whose wake stretched across three continents and whose timbers—long waterlogged and silent—are finally being heard.
For sailors, historians, and ship-lovers alike, the significance is profound. In Endeavour‘s bones we find not just a vessel, but a tangible link to a chapter of maritime history that shaped the modern world. Her return is not to port, but to memory—and to a fuller reckoning of the stories she carried, both told and untold.
Australian National Maritime Museum diver in Newport Harbor 2019
For further reading and the full Final Report, visit www.sea.museum/endeavour-report. To explore the archaeology of RI 2394 and view artefacts and findings from the site, delve into the museum’s Deep Dive series at www.sea.museum/deep-dive.
Related stories
Our Feature series on HMB Endeavour
Cook’s Endeavour Confirmed in Newport Harbor
Read Captain Cook’s journal –
1. James Cook aboard His Majesty’s Bark Endeavour first sight of Australia at Point Hicks
2. James Cook journal: 20th – 28th April, 1770 on HMB Endeavour From Pt. Hicks to Kamay Botany Bay
