I went to the Maritime Museum in Sydney specifically to look at Jessica Watson’s boat. Tiny, tiny little thing it is. Can’t believe she did what she did. More power to ya, Jess.
Anyhoo, I kept wandering down the dock and realised that the replica of Cook’s ship the Endeavour was there, and you could go onboard. So I dashed into the museum, paid the price, stowed my gear and went aboard.
Bit of info – the Endeavour was original a coal-carrying ship. That’s right, an eighteenth century tanker. Usually crewed by a massive sixteen men. When Cook left England on the first journey, he had another 92 people on board (you took more than you needed, cause sailors died and you needed them replaced, you know). So a bit of work was done to the ship to make it ready.
A new deck was put in and the entire ship refitted, at the cost of thousands of pounds. No, tens of thousands of pounds (the equivalent of millions in today’s money). Lots of which was given them by Joseph Banks. So in fact, poor Cook found himself on a ship with a rich bloke who pretty much owned it.
I’m guessing it was an interesting trip, particularly when after watching the transit of Venus (the reason for the voyage, according to the scientists on board), Cook turned around and told them they were going to take a leisurely voyage home cause he had orders too – to find the mysterious great southern land that must be balancing the world.
And as we all know, in 1770, he did just that :) Well, he found the great southern land – the whole balancing the land masses of the world thing turned out to be bunkum.
When you step on board, the Endeavour at first seems a mess of ropes.
The tour takes you from the foredeck down onto the newly added deck (newly added in the original in 1768, that is – in this ship I imagine it was built at the same time as the rest, that is 1987-1993). This is the area that the meals were cooked, and the sailors slept. Around 70 of them (including the dozen marines there specifically to halt a mutiny – was Cook smarter than Bligh, or did Bligh’s marines mutiny as well?). So it was a busy place, but not allowed to get messy. Cook was a bit of a stickler for cleanliness and hygiene and it worked – he got his entire crew most of the way home. Unfortunately, they’d become so hygienic their immune systems were a bit down and when they landed in Indonesia, they got sick and lots died on the last leg to England. Poor Cook.
Then we come to the interesting part of the ship – cause of the way the new deck was added, you get headroom at the fore of the ship (where the majority of the crew were) but not a lot at the rear. I was bent over double to walk around, and you all know I’m not the tallest of folks. I thought about some of those big, strapping men and realised it would have been a damned inconvenient way to travel.
At the back of this desk slept the officers and the midshipmen. The officers should have had the more spacious cabins above, but the gentlemen got those and so only Cook slept up there. The rest of his officers, their servants and those in training were down in this hobbit-sized area. Nearly half of the men in this section of the ship died on the voyage from Indonesia back to England and one has to wonder if the close proximity led to it.
This was the second lieutenant’s cabin. That’s right, the number two on the ship. About a metre and a half across, maybe two metres long, and I couldn’t stand upright in it. Being up on deck was a much better alternative.
From here, the tour of the ship takes you up to where the scientists and Cook worked. Here, you finally get the typical image of a ship of this time – the large captain’s office. Except Cook didn’t get this to himself. He shared it with the scientists. And the actual captain’s cabin was taken by Banks, so Cook was in one of the outer cabins. To add possible insult to injury, Banks was 6’4” tall and couldn’t actually sleep in his bunk, so he slept on a hammock strung up in the office at night and his DOGS slept on the bunk.
You know, I was really starting to feel for poor Cook by this stage. He finally gets command of his own ship, although he really doesn’t cause he has to ferry the guy who funded its conversion and his mates around. Then he doesn’t get to have his own office but has to share the table space with the scientists. His officers, his supposed support network, are on the deck below (although they came up here to eat and work). Again, being up on deck sounds a great place to stay.
This is Cook’s cabin. Much more spacious than his poor 2NC got, but still not what he SHOULD have had. Luckily Banks did some cool stuff on the voyage and had his dogs (who were very useful at scaring up fresh meat when they hit landfall) or I’d be a bit pissed at him.
From this area you end up on the quarter deck, the preserve of the captain and officers. Standing here, surveying the crew and the distant horizon – this was what all the years of work to become an officer were about, baby! I was surprised by how close the wheel was to one of the masts and thought maybe that was for lashing on during bad weather, until I read you actually had two helmsman, one on each side. I guess a ship this size would be a bugger to steer.
So that’s basically it – the tour of the Endeavour. One of those moments where experiencing it means everything. Knowledge, seeing pictures or movies or whatever doesn’t really get across the sensation of feeling the boat move in the water beneath you, or just how cramped it is (particularly at the rear part of the lower deck) or make you realise just how amazing it was to take this boat around the world and back.