Endeavor by Samuel Atkins (1760-1810) at the National Library of Australia, public domain

There’s an old saying in science that substantial claims require substantial evidence, and a team of maritime archaeologists believe they have enough to state definitely: the wreck of one of the most famous ships ever sailed, HMS Endeavor, has been found.

Piloted by Captain James Cook throughout his first voyage to Australasia and the South Pacific, the wreck has been confirmed to be RI 2349, a previously-unexamined vessel off the coast of Rhode Island.

A 3D scan of the wreckage of Endeavor – credit, ANMM

The effort to find Endeavor was started in the closing years of the 20th century by the Australian National Maritime Museum, and the recent report released on RI 2349 was called by its director as the “definitive statement” on the 25-year hunt.

“This final report is the culmination of 25 years of detailed and meticulous archaeological study on this important vessel,” said museum director Daryl Karp.

One of the most controversial figures in British imperial history, none can say that Capt. Cook wasn’t an extraordinary man. As a navigator, leader, and explorer, few in the nation’s long history could ever hope to match the accomplishments he made between 1768 and 1779.

In just his first voyage with Endeavor, he charted the coastline of eastern Australia, circumnavigating both New Zealand islands and placing on the map the positions of several inhabited islands in the Society group and French Polynesia, claiming them all for Great Britain.

And there lies the controversy, for as much as Cook could be an inspirational figure for explorers and navigators, his colonializing influence, particularly with regards to Hawaii, changed the destiny of Oceania forever.

On his third voyage around the Pacific, Cook was killed in Hawaii during a dispute with the natives, and Endeavor was recommissioned as a military transport ship. Sold to the shipping firm Mather & Co., and then renamed the Lord Sandwich it was scuttled during the American Revolutionary War.

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That meant it must have been somewhere in American waters, and after a quarter century of search and study, was eventually identified to be the wreck near Rhode Island.

“The stem scarf is identical, absolutely identical,” said archaeologist Kieran Hosty who, along with the rest of her team, relied on dockyard surveys and other documentation of Endeavor to confirm the wreck’s true identity.

“The timbers are British timbers. The size of all the timber scantlings are almost identical to Endeavour, and I’m talking within millimeters—not inches, but millimeters.”

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Unlike the recent discovery of Earnest Shackleton’s Endurance, under the Antarctic Ocean, where maritime archaeologists were literally able to see the word written on the stern, there was likely never going to be something as significant to identify Endeavor because it had already been recommissioned by the time it sunk.

“You’ll never find a sign saying ‘Cook was here,’” said Hosty. “We’ve got a whole series of things pointing to RI 2394 as being … Endeavor. And so far, we found lots of things that tick the box for it to be Endeavour and nothing on the site which says it’s not.”

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