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| Dimensions | 95L x 29W x 90H (cm) |
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HMS Endeavour, also known as HM Bark Endeavour, was a British Royal Navy research vessel commanded by Lieutenant James Cook on his first voyage of discovery, to Australia and New Zealand from 1769 to 1771.
Launched in 1764 as the collier Earl of Pembroke, she was purchased by the Navy 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”. Renamed and commissioned 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 seagoing vessel to reach the east coast of Australia, when Cook went ashore at what is now known as Botany Bay.
| Dimensions | 95L x 29W x 90H (cm) |
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The France II was launched at Bordeaux in 1911 for the New Caledonia nickel ore trade to Europe. Although not the last commercial square-rigged sailing vessel to be built, the France represents the apogee of merchant sail and her great size and powerful performance can be seen as a culmination of technological developments from the second half of the 19th century which gave such impetus to the evolution of the square-rigger over that time. France II measured 5,633 tons gross on a length of 419 feet. Her beam was 56 feet and her depth 25 feet.
Armed with two canons, France II surmounted all odds during World War I by regularly skirting the three symbolic Capes: Cape Horn, the Cape of Good Hope, and Cape Leeuwin.
On a calm sea on July 11 1922, the great ship ran aground at the Ouano reefs in New Caledonia. She would remain a familiar silhouette for the next 20 years to those passionate about the sea. In 1944 American bombers destroyed the wreck signaling the death of the greatest tall ship ever built. (164196-3)
In 1869 John Willis, a shipowner and ship’s captain from London, commissioned the building of the clipper CUTTY SARK in order to beat the THERMOPYLAE (built one year before) in the “tea race”. The name CUTTY SARK is of Scottish origin and means “short shirt”. The figurehead is a witch called Nannie.
Under 1877 the full-rig ship sailed almost exclusively as a tea dipper on the China route and she frequently achieved speeds of up to 17 knots. Then from 1877 onwards the CUTTY SARK served mainly in the Australian wool trade
The Eagle is a three-masted sailing Barque with 21,350 square feet of sail. It is homeported at the CG Academy, New London, Connecticut. It is the only active commissioned sailing vessel in the U.S. maritime services. (One of five such Training Barques in world. Sister ships include: MIRCEA of Romania, SAGRES II of Portugal, GORCH FOCK of Germany, and TOVARICH of Russia.)
The Eagle bears a name that goes back to the early history of the United States’ oldest continuous seagoing service. The first Eagle was commissioned in 1792, just two years after the formation of the Revenue Marine, the forerunner of today’s Coast Guard.
The HMS Victory was a first-rate three-decker, carrying 110 guns, and was accounted the finest ship in the service. In 1744, she was the flagship of Admiral Sir J. Balchen, a venerable officer of 75 years of age, who had been called from the honourable retirement of Greenwich Hospital to command a fleet destined to relieve Sir Charles Hardy, then blockaded in Lisbon by a superior French force, under the Count de Rochambault. On returning from the successful performance of this service, the fleet was dispersed in the chops of the Channel by a tremendous gale, on October 4th. The rest of the ships, though much shattered, gained the anchorage of Spithead in safety, but the Victory was never more heard of, though from the evidence of fishermen of the island of Alderney, she was believed to have run on to the Caskets, some dangerous rocks lying off that island, where her gallant crew of about a thousand perished to a man
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