HMS Endeavour - Construction

Construction

Endeavour was originally a merchant collier named Earl of Pembroke, launched in June 1764 from the coal and whaling port of Whitby in North Yorkshire, and as such is known locally as the Whitby Cat. She was ship-rigged and sturdily built with a broad, flat bow, a square stern and a long box-like body with a deep hold. Her length was 106 feet (32 m), and 97 feet 7 inches (29.74 m) on her lower deck, with a beam of 29 feet 3 inches (8.92 m). Her burthen was 36871⁄₉₄ tons.

A flat-bottomed design made her well-suited to sailing in shallow waters and allowed her to be beached for loading and unloading of cargo and for basic repairs without requiring a dry dock. Her hull, internal floors and futtocks were built from traditional white oak, her keel and stern post from elm and her masts from pine and fir. Plans of the ship also show a double keelson to lock the keel, floors and frames in place.

Some doubt exists about the height of her masts, as surviving diagrams of Endeavour depict the body of the vessel only, and not the mast plan. While her main and foremasts are accepted to be a standard 129 and 110 feet (39 and 34 m) respectively, an annotation on one surviving ship plan records the mizzen as "16 yards 29 inches" (15.4 m). If correct, this would produce an oddly truncated mast a full 9 feet (2.7 m) shorter than the standards of the day. Modern research suggests the annotation may be a transcription error and should read "19 yards 29 inches" (24.5 m), which would more closely conform with both the naval standards and the lengths of the other masts. The replica is built to this shorter measurement, as is the model in the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. Note, for example, the differences between the height of the mizzen for-and-aft spar in the contemporary painting by Luny (below) and its position on the replica in the photographs, compared to the height of the lowest spars on the fore and mainmasts.