Earlier today, the Australian National Maritime Museum, in conjunction with the RI Marine Archeology Project (RIMAP), announced the likely resting place of Captain Cook’s HMS Endeavour, known as the Lord Sandwich 2 at the time of its scuttling in 1778.
After 25 years of study and research, it appears the ship is located near Goat Island, in Rhode Island’s Newport Harbor.
We’re excited to share the news of the latest fieldwork in the search for the wreck of HMB Endeavour. | @RIMarineArchaeo @SilentworldFdn #HMBEndeavour #maritimearchaeology https://t.co/SVlYScPJ6f
— Nat. Maritime Museum (@ANMMuseum) September 21, 2018
Starting from ten sites back in 1999, RIMAP whittled the prospects down to five, and finally one, called the “Kerry Site”:
RIMAP began the study of the British transports in Newport Harbor in 1993 with a remote sensing survey and began to locate these 18th-century sites. By 1999 RIMAP had published the historical evidence that the Lord Sandwich transport had been used as a prison ship in Newport Harbor, and had been Captain Cook’s Endeavour Bark of his first circumnavigation.
While RIMAP is confident of its findings and has already collected a lot of data, including “10,000 images” to provide a 3D view of the wreckage, more time and money is needed for an “artefact management facility … to process, store, and display the artefacts that will emerge from the planned 2019 excavation”.