Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
decided to buy a Whitby-built collier, the
Earl of Pembroke,
for the
task. She was small (106 feet overall), sturdy, young (laid down in
1764) and had adequate storage space for the provisions needed on
a long voyage. Equipping her with new masts, six guns and an outer
sheathing to her hull (wood and flat-headed iron nails, not copper)
transformed this merchant vessel into his majesty's barque
Endeav-
our.
The Admiralty had learned another lesson from previous exped-
itions. This was that it was very difficult to keep a group of ships, or
even two ships, together on long passages. The risks of slower ves-
sels being separated from their flagship, lost at sea or simply ham-
pering the work of the commander far outweighed any advantages
which might be gained by mutual support and strength of numbers.
So, on 25 August 1768,
Endeavour
sailed alone.
She took the conventional route via Madeira and the Cape Verde
Islands to Brazil. She reached Tierra del Fuego at the height of the
southern summer and Cook then took her round the Horn. His in-
structions ordered him to do so. The Admiralty had concluded from
the experiences of Anson and Wallis that, at the right time of year, it
was better to risk the storms off the Cape than the possible delays
of the Straits. And Cook was lucky. Even a giant sleeps sometimes
and, though Cook had to tack far to the south against the prevailing
westerlies, he met none of the savage gales that other mariners had
experienced. There were even days of flat calm when Joseph Banks
could be rowed away in a boat to shoot birds for his collection and
the table. Cook was able to approach within a few miles of Cape Horn
itself and describe it accurately while Charles Green, the astronomer,
correctly computed its longitude. By 13 February, when his ship was
well into the Pacific, Cook could allow an element of self-congratula-
tion to creep into his journal:
... we are now advanced about 120° the westward of the Strait
of Magellan and 3½° to the northward of it, having been 33 days in
