HMS Endeavour — Open Hull Cutaway Model, Handcrafted Wood | Admiral Line

Cook's Endeavour with one side of the hull left open — which on this particular ship tells you more than a closed model ever could.

Endeavour was a coal carrier converted for exploration, and the conversion happened entirely below decks: cabins built into a cargo hold, storerooms partitioned for three years of provisions, space found for a naturalist, an artist and their specimens. A cutaway shows the compromise.

What you can see

• Exposed frames and internal planking, finished on both faces
• Individually laid decks with cabins, bulkheads and partitions
• Ladders, capstan, internal deck structure and the hold below
• Stowage arrangement of a vessel provisioned for a multi-year voyage

Construction

• Plank-on-frame hull in western red cedar, rosewood and mahogany
• Sectioned hull with finished interior surfaces
• Three masts and bowsprit with hand-knotted rigging
• Solid wood base and engraved brass nameplate
• Fully assembled

History

Launched at Whitby in 1764 as the collier Earl of Pembroke and bought by the Navy in 1768, she carried James Cook to Tahiti, around New Zealand and to eastern Australia. Ninety-four people sailed in a ship 106 feet long. Roughly a third never came home — most of them lost to dysentery at Batavia on the return leg, not to the reef that nearly ended the voyage.