May 19, 2006, 19:10 GMT
Washington - Archaeologists are hot on the trail of the sunken wreck of the Endeavour, commanded by Captain Cook in his first epic voyage across the Pacific Ocean more than 200 years ago.
The Endeavour is believed to be one of 12 ships sunk by the British off the coast of Newport, Connecticut in 1778, in an attempt to fend off a French attack on Newport Harbour. Six of the 12 ships were first discovered by a team from the University of Rhode Island in August 2005, but divers only recently dated them back to the 18th century.
'The chances that the Endeavour is among them is 50-50,' Professor Rod Mather, who first made the discoveries, told Deutsche Presse- Agentur dpa on Friday.
Mather said he expects to find the remaining six ships sunk by the British soon, but added it will still be years before any artefacts can be recovered from the wreckages.
On August 8, 1768, Captain James Cook, then a lieutenant, embarked on a voyage from Plymouth, England, which took him on a three year journey around the world. During that voyage, Cook became the first European to reach the eastern Australian coast and spent six months mapping the region and circumventing New Zealand.
Cook died in 1779 when he was stabbed to death in Hawaii on his third Pacific voyage. The Endeavour was renamed Lord Sandwich at the time it was sunk off Newport Harbour in an attempt by the British to establish a barrier ahead of a attack by the French fleet.
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