Putting Faith In Cook

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31016, 23 March 1966, Page 26

Putting Faith In Cook

[From the London correspondent of "The Press.”] LONDON, March 3. The replica of Captain Cook’s historic H. M. S. Endeavour which is to sail from Britain in July, 1968, to retrace the hazardous route which led Cook to New Zealand and Australia will spurn modem nautical saids. There will be no engines, radar or air-conditioning. Roaring at a press conference in London in the best “old sea dog” style, Captain Alan Villiers, the man who is to assume Cook’s role in commanding the voyage (and one of Britain’s best-known “blue' water” seamen) said: “We will have sails. I’ll put my faith in Cook—if he could handle her with sails, it’s good enough for me.” A radio transmitter will be carried on board the Endeavour, however—“to let me know where they are,” said Admiral Sir Charles Madden, former Commander-In-Chief of the Home Fleet and executive secretary of the British committee of the Endeavour Trust. Asked if the radio would be used to obtain forecasts of storms, Captain Villiers barked: “You don’t get forecasts of storms round Cape Horn.

“I have been round Cape Horn in steel ships and 1 did not like what I saw. But Cook sailed round so, with God’s help, shall we. “Cook in fact passed round the Horn without apparently noting it. How he did it, I don’t know—but I hope to find out.

“I have spoken to some old sailors who have been in these little barks of four, five or six hundred tons and gone rdund the Horn and been told that they go round a durn sight better than the big clumsy four-masted ships that I was brought up in. So I am looking forward to this —more or less.” Best Foods

Captain Villiers said that the ship would take the best possible foods and water. “We are not pretending to recreate anything except the ship. We don't want to run the risk of disease on board. There will be a range of dried foods.”

The captain said there would not be a refrigerator on board. “A refrigerator needs power, and power means obstructive and destructive noise. A sailing ship is so-o-o-o quiet—by God’s grace it is about the last quiet thing left on earth. So we don’t want a noisy generator on board. If someone invents a quiet transistorised refrigerator that runs off batteries, then we’ll have the biggest one on board.” In the old days of sail, water was taken in barrels, Villiers recalled, screwing up his nose. “They stank before you put water in them; and they £tank after. With water in them they became most interesting aquaria. I’ve had some of that water, and it was dangerous. This horrible water was one of the reasons why sailors took to drink and ships took plenty of rum.” One-Third the Crew Cook had a crew of 90 sailing with him, but Villiers will only take 30, including officers, carpenter, sail maker, kitchen staff and seamen. “A crew of 20 would be enough,” Villiers added, gruffly. “We sailed the four-masted Pamir with 19.” He said that already the nucleus of the crew was ready for such a voyage. He did not need any volunteers. “Now and again I have been asked to sail these old models for motion picture companies and the like, and this has given us an opportunity to train up some British boys. Wo took a brigantine and al

it bark from the Baltic to Hawaii last year and that was good experience.” Captain Villiers said that he believed this was the last generation that could make such a voyage. “There will be no more. It is not possible

to pick up the pieces of handling these little ships on long voyages once the tradition has been lost. In a decade or so it will be lost—quite lost.” Two Years Though the voyage from England is scheduled to take close on two years to complete, the number of sailing days will be limited to about three months. Endeavour 11 will call at ports along the coast of South America, Tahiti, Hawaii and New Zealand before reaching Sydney to coincide with the bicentenary celebrations in 1970.

Asked if he planned to spend much time in Tahiti and Hawaii, Villiers said, that they would have five months in Tahiti as Cook had done. “And how do you think the Mutiny on the Bounty was caused? I was there only for five days once, and I almost had a little mutiny myself.” The captain said that there was still some good riggers in Britain. “I know a fine old Welshman who has been doing this work all his life. He has been stuck the last 20 years or so doing museum models, but he can do it all right.”

The replica ship will be built at a British yard, though not at Whitby, Yorkshire, where the original Endeavour was made. The timbers, canvases, rigging and equipment will be made to specifications drawn up by the Whitby naval architect from information obtained from the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. The ship will take two years to build.

The name of the builder is being withheld at present until a substantial part of the £300,000 needed to finance the project is found. Most of the cost is being raised in Australia and there is to be no public appeal in Britain. As a ship registered in Britain, the Endeavour will have to comply with the existing regulations. It will be classed as a type of pleasure yacht and should not strictly take freight, but in this case it is expected that there will 400 tons of “prestige cargo.”

It was as the result of a suggestion made to Captain Villiers by the Australian Historical Society that the Endeavour Trust was formed.