
Endeavour replica, Image: ANMM
The question is not so much whether the wreck of Captain Cook’s ship Endeavour rests at the bottom of the harbor in Newport, RI, but rather which of several wrecks it may be. The Endeavour, renamed Lord Sandwich and outfitted as a troop transport, was scuttled in Newport harbor with 12 other ships to attempt to blockade the French fleet in Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island, in 1778.
For over twenty years, the Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project (RIMAP) has been working to determine which pile of rotting timbers and ballast stones is indeed Endeavour.
In February, Australian National Maritime Museum’s (ANMM) CEO Kevin Sumption claimed “conclusively” that one of the wrecks in Newport Harbour was, in fact, the British explorer’s Endeavour. Local archaeologists say “not so fast.”