
Most of us know the Endeavour as the boat that James Cook commanded on his first voyage of discovery. Yet she was never designed or built to be an exploration vessel. A map of its voyage (top left) shows the route it took from Botany Bay in 1770, before it continued on a journey through Jakarta and the Cape of Good Hope. A timeline shows that it launched in England in 1764 before it scuttled in a wartime blockade with 12 vessels in 1778. The ship had 18 miles of rope as well as 750 wooden blocks and 28 sails. American researchers earlier this week said that they may have found her wreck off Rhode Island.