The news has been full of announcements about the discovery of Captain Cook’s HMS Endeavour by the Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project (RIMAP) near the harbor at Newport, Rhode, Island. Much of the reporting has been somewhat confused. The Daily Mail, for example, provides a map which shows the location of the  wreck as being in deep water in Rhode Island Sound generally between the Elizabeth Islands and Block Island, which doesn’t make any particular sense as the wreck is described as inside or near Newport harbor.

This seems oddly familiar. Haven’t we heard all this before? Four years ago, we posted Remembering and Possibly Rediscovering Cook’s HMS Endeavour in which we noted, “Now, archaeologists in Rhode Island believe they may have located Cook’s ship….Recently, Dr. Kathy Abbass, the director of the Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project, believes that they have located the location where the Endeavour/Lord Sandwich was scuttled.”

The reports of the discovery go back even further. For example, the BBC report, Captain Cook’s Endeavour ‘found’ is dated May 18th, 2006. The BBC article begins:  The ship that Captain Cook commanded on his first voyage across the Pacific Ocean may be resting on the seabed off the coast of New England. US.Marine archaeologists believe it is one of four shipwrecks found during an underwater survey of Newport Harbor.

The records go back farther. The US Marshal service has posted: The Marshals Service in 1999 was called upon by Rhode Island Attorney General Sheldon Whitehouse to symbolically arrest and seize the vessels to prevent salvage hunters and recreational divers from vandalizing and pilfering them. The ships lie on the bottom of Newport Harbor in Narragansett Bay.

“Historic preservationists and marine archaeologists have always tried to preserve shipwrecks but the laws haven’t been strong enough in their favor,” said Dr. Kathy Abbass, director of the Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project. “The salvagers have had the upper hand”.

Abbass was the first person to publish that one of the vessels at the bottom of the harbor may be the Endeavour. She has researched the ship’s history extensively and her findings have attracted the attention of Cook scholars and enthusiasts from around the world.

So when was the Endeavour discovered? Has it been found yet? In a very real sense, the RIMAP researchers first discovered the Endeavour, not at Newport, but at the Public Records Office (PRO) at Kew, outside of London, where they successfully identified the troop transport Lord Sandwich, as the renamed Endeavour.

The Lord Sandwich was scuttled in Newport harbor with 12 other ships to attempt to blockade the French fleet in Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island, in 1778. Having identified the fate of HMS Endeavour/Lord Sandwich, RIMAP has spent the last sixteen plus years attempting to identify which of the scuttled wrecks was Captain Cook’s ship.

Have they found the right ship? We are likely to know more after the RIMAP announcement tomorrow.

Thanks to Alaric Bond, Alan Rice, Phil Leon and David Rye for contributing to this post.