ONCE again this year the replica Cook's Endeavour played an important role in Australia Day activities, but how much do we know about its history and Port Stephens connection?
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Shoal Bay researcher Darrell Dawson said experts are getting closer to solving the mysterious fate of the famous vessel.
"The HM Bark Endeavour, a former Whitby coal collier, set sail under the command of Lieutenant James Cook from Plymouth on August 25, 1768, on the most significant voyage in the annals of ocean discovery," Mr Dawson said.
"Following the rounding of Cape Horn and the circumnavigation (September 1769) of New Zealand, Cook headed for the east coast of New Holland which was sighted on April 19, 1770, by second in command Lieutenant Zachary Hicks.
"Cook visited and named Botany Bay before, on May 11, he sighted and named Port Stephens after the secretary to the British Admiralty, Sir Phillip Stephens.
"On August 24, 1770, he proclaimed British sovereignty over the eastern New Holland mainland, naming it New South Wales."
Mr Dawson said while the Endeavour returned to England on July 17, 1771, there remained to this day both speculation and new evidence of where and how the Endeavour ended its days.
"Dedicated research has disclosed that in 1775, British Admiralty sold the Endeavour to a shipping merchant (J Mather) trading in logs from Russia to rebuild the British Fleet.
"Later it was used for shipping stores to the Falkland Islands, then mercenaries to help the British cause against American independence, it also became a whaler and finally a prison ship in Newport Harbour, Rhode Island.
"When the French Admiral d'Estaing attacked Newport in 1778 in support of the American revolution, the British commander ordered all vessels in the harbour to be sunk to obstruct French entry.
"Recent and, as yet, incomplete research places both of Cook's ships, the Endeavour and the Resolution, at the bottom of Newport's Narragansett Bay.
"American marine archaeologist Kathy Abbass in 1998, after identifying nine of the 13 vessels scuttled in 1778, considered it highly likely that Endeavour was one of these wrecks."
He said the objective now was to confirm the Endeavour's fate by the 250th anniversary of Cook's journey in 2020.