James Cook and the HMS Endeavour

James Cook (1728-1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the Royal Navy. Cook made detailed maps of Newfoundland prior to making three voyages to the Pacific Ocean, during which he achieved the first recorded European contact with the eastern coastline of Australia and the Hawaiian Islands, and the first recorded circumnavigation of New Zealand.

In three voyages Cook sailed thousands of miles across largely uncharted areas of the globe. He mapped lands from New Zealand to Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean in greater detail and on a scale not previously achieved. As he progressed on his voyages of discovery he surveyed and named features, and recorded islands and coastlines on European maps for the first time. He displayed a combination of seamanship, superior surveying and cartographic skills, physical courage and an ability to lead men in adverse conditions.

Cook was killed in Hawaii in a fight with Hawaiians during his third exploratory voyage in the Pacific in 1779. He left a legacy of scientific and geographical knowledge which was to influence his successors well into the 20th century and numerous memorials worldwide have been dedicated to him.

HMS Endeavour, was a British Royal Navy research vessel that Lieutenant James Cook commanded on his first voyage of discovery, to Australia and New Zealand, from 1769 to 1771.

She was launched in 1764 as the collier Earl of Pembroke, and the Navy purchased her in 1768 for a scientific mission to the Pacific Ocean and to explore the seas for the surmised Terra Australis Incognita or "unknown southern land". The Navy renamed and commissioned her as His Majesty's Bark the Endeavour. She departed Plymouth in August 1768, rounded Cape Horn, and reached Tahiti in time to observe the 1769 transit of Venus across the Sun.

She then set sail into the largely uncharted ocean to the south, stopping at the Pacific islands of Huahine, Borabora, and Raiatea to allow Cook to claim them for Great Britain. In September 1769, she anchored off New Zealand, the first European vessel to reach the islands since Abel Tasman's Heemskerck 127 years earlier.

In April 1770, Endeavour became the first ship to reach the east coast of Australia, when Cook went ashore at what is now known as Botany Bay. Endeavour then sailed north along the Australian coast. She narrowly avoided disaster after running aground on the Great Barrier Reef, and Cook had to throw her guns overboard to lighten her. He then beached her on the mainland for seven weeks to permit rudimentary repairs to her hull. On 10 October 1770, she limped into port in Batavia (now named Jakarta) in the Dutch East Indies for more substantial repairs, her crew sworn to secrecy about the lands they had visited. She resumed her westward journey on 26 December, rounded the Cape of Good Hope on 13 March 1771, and reached the English port of Dover on 12 July, having been at sea for nearly three years.

This project includes:

• James Cook - explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain

• John Gore - officer

• Charles Clerke - officer

• Sydney Parkinson - botanical illustrator and natural history artist

• Joseph Banks - naturalist, botanist and patron of the natural sciences

• Charles Green - astronomer

• 3 Red coat soldiers

• Nicholas Young - stowaway

• 3 Polynesians - and their boat

It has 2395 pieces (760 only for the sails)

There are many accessories: a boat, 2 telescopes, a clock, a table, a easel, 2 flowerpot, maps of Tahiti, New Zealand and the Botany Bay, a drawing of the transit of Venus. There is also a picture: of a plant, of the Endeavour and King George III. of England and Hanover.

It has many features.

You can open the captain's cabin from 3 sides and from the top. Or you open the deck and hoist the anchor. There is a fireplace with a cooking table, a bed, a weapons rack and there are 2 cannons inside.

@all viewers:
Now it's up to you. Vote for my project and make the dream come true.
Please look at my other projects, sare these with your friends and support these.

Here are my best supported projects:

You can also visit me on flickr.

Thank you for your attention.