Captain Cook’s Famous Shipwreck Finally Found After 25-Year Search in Rhode Island

Final report confirms identification of the famed vessel scuttled off Rhode Island in 1778.

In the still waters of Newport Harbor, Rhode Island, the long-lost bones of a ship lie buried in silt. For centuries, the wreck had no name. Now, after more than 25 years of international detective work above and below the waves, Australian maritime archaeologists are confident they’ve found one of the most storied vessels in history: HM Bark Endeavour, the ship that carried James Cook to the Pacific, New Zealand, and the eastern coast of Australia.

“This final report marks our definitive statement on the project,” said Daryl Karp, Director and CEO of the Australian National Maritime Museum, when the museum released its final report in June 2025. “It is the culmination of 25 years of detailed and meticulous archaeological study on this important vessel.”

A Voyage That Changed the World

The Endeavour’s historic voyage began in 1768. Under the command of Captain James Cook, the ship circumnavigated the globe and made landfall on the continent the British would later call Australia. To many, this expedition marks the peak of the Enlightenment’s spirit of discovery.

But it also marks the beginning of something else.

“For others it symbolises the onset of colonisation and the subjugation of First Nations Peoples,” the museum’s final report noted, acknowledging the conflicting legacy that has grown around Cook’s journey and the imperial consequences that followed.

That legacy is why the ship’s identity matters far beyond maritime archaeology. Cook’s 1770 voyage mapped much of Australia’s east coast and ended with his claim of the eastern part of the continent for Britain as New South Wales. Eighteen years later, the First Fleet arrived to establish a British penal colony.

In recent years, museums and historians have increasingly tried to tell the Endeavour story from both ship and shore: the astronomers, sailors and cartographers aboard Cook’s vessel, and the Indigenous communities who watched the ship arrive, saw their lands mapped and named, and later bore the consequences of British colonisation.

The Endeavour’s days of exploration were short-lived. Launched in 1764 as Earl of Pembroke, renamed Endeavour by the Royal Navy in 1768, and later sold into private hands, the vessel became Lord Sandwich before its final act in America. The ship was later used by the British during the American War of Independence. In 1778, it was deliberately sunk — one of 13 vessels scuttled in Newport Harbor in an attempt to block the advancing French fleet.

The Hunt Begins

The search for the Endeavour started in 1999, a joint venture between the Australian National Maritime Museum and the Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project (RIMAP). Together, they combed through colonial records and underwater wreckage, zeroing in on one candidate: site RI 2394.

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This wreck stood out. It matched what was known of the Endeavour’s size, shape, and construction. But in archaeology, hunches are not enough.

Over the years, researchers painstakingly examined the remains, comparing hull fragments and structural features with original 18th-century ship plans. They tested the timbers and measured the ship’s “scantlings”—the size of its wooden components. All pointed toward a British-built vessel of over 350 tons.

American-built ships of the time used native woods, a medley of timbers from local forests. But the wood in this wreck — white oak and elm — was definitely British or European.

More crucial still were two features found during underwater excavation: the pump well and a keel-stem scarph joint. These were the smoking guns.

The pump well — a distinct structure located midship — lined up exactly with its position on Endeavour’s original plans. “It was a significant turning point in the identification of the site,” museum researchers wrote.

Then came the scarph joint, a complex timber splice used in 18th-century shipbuilding to connect the keel to the bow. The one found at the site was a near-perfect match to Endeavour’s shipyard drawings.

Only one other wreck with such a joint has ever been found, in Bermuda.

A Mystery Ship Finally Found

In February 2022, the museum went public. Based on what they described as a “preponderance of evidence,” they declared the wreck to be the Lord Sandwich — formerly the Endeavour.

But not everyone was convinced.

The Rhode Island team urged caution. They feared the announcement was premature, perhaps driven by “Australian emotions or politics.” They agreed the site might be the Endeavour — but they weren’t ready to close the case.

Three years later, the Australians have answered every objection.

The Final Report, published in June 2025, not only affirms the 2022 claim but adds weight to it. It compiles new site plans, updated structural comparisons, and an unprecedented database of 18th-century shipwrecks across the Atlantic. None match this wreck as closely as RI 2394.

Despite lingering disagreement, the Australians are clear: “After numerous presentations at domestic and international archaeological forums, no substantive responses have refuted the identification.”

Even RIMAP, while not endorsing the conclusion, has acknowledged the thoroughness of the work. The museum praised their “fine historical analysis and detailed artefact recording.”

The dispute is now less about whether RI 2394 is a plausible candidate — both sides accept that — and more about whether the evidence is sufficient to close the case. RIMAP has argued that no single artifact, site feature, or condition should identify one wreck on its own. The stronger standard, in its view, is a combination of evidence that fits one vessel and rules out the others.

What Comes Next?

While the debate may quiet, the work is not over. The final report recommends that efforts continue to preserve the wreck. Marine borers — shipworms and tiny crustaceans called gribbles — are slowly eating away at the wood. Time is as much an enemy now as it was in battle.

But preservation is more complicated than simply digging before the wreck disappears. Buried timbers can survive because silt, ballast, and low-oxygen conditions seal them away from the organisms that destroy exposed wood. Once archaeologists uncover those timbers, deterioration can accelerate. The next challenge is how to document the wreck without destroying the conditions that have protected it for nearly 250 years.

There is also a legal and diplomatic dimension. Rhode Island claimed the abandoned scuttled vessels in Newport Harbor in 1999, and the Rhode Island Historical Preservation and Heritage Commission oversees protection and licensing for archaeological work there. If RI 2394 is formally treated as Endeavour, it becomes not only an American wreck site but a vessel of deep symbolic importance to Australia and Britain as well.

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The museum has also proposed an educational initiative to share the story of the Endeavour more broadly, and to ensure it’s told in full — both the triumphs of navigation and the troubled history of colonisation that followed in the ship’s wake.

Finding the Endeavour was never just about archaeology. It was also about understanding the stories that shape who we are.

After two and a half centuries, one of the world’s most consequential vessels has been found. The past, it seems, still has much to reveal.

This article was originally published in June 6, 2025, and has been edited to include additional information.