OLD WRECK RECALLED.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20491, 17 February 1930, Page 12

OLD WRECK RECALLED.

BY TE KAKA.

LOSS OF THE ENDEAVOUR.

FIRST SHIP BUILT IN COLONY

A paragraph which appeared in the Herald of February 14 describing tho finding in Facile Harbour, West Coast Sounds, of a teak rib from the wreck of tho vessel Endeavour, recalls a stirring story of New Zealand's early days. The Endeavour, an 800-ton vessel, sailed from Sydney, on September 18, 1795, for Dusky Sound, in company with the scow Fancy. Soon after sailing, tho Endeavour commenced to leak badly, and at Dusky Sound her master, Captain William Wright Brampton, was compelled to abandon her. On October 25 she was unmoored, after all stores and fittings of value had been removed, and the masts taken down, and two days later she struck a rotik and settled down. The return of the castaways to civilisation is an epic of courage and skilled seamanship. In 1792 a sealing party had been landed at Dusky Sound with provisions for a years stay, and had built and almost completed a vessel of the following dimensions: 4ft. 6in. keel, 35ft. length on deck, 16ft. lOin. beam, and 12ft. held. She was built entirely of timber cut on the spot, and was the first vessel built in New Zealand or Australia of New Zealand wood. This vessel had been abandoned on the stocks by the sealing party, and was completed by the Endeavour castaways. She was named by them tho Providence, and was sailed in company with the Fancy to Norfolk Island. These two boats, however, could not carry all the shipwrecked party, and another boat was ionstructed from tho frame of the longboat of the Endeavour. This vessel was sailed to Sydney, making that port on March 17, 1796. Thirty-five castaways still remained at the Sound, and were roscued by an American vessel,, tho Mercury, aftor 20 months in exile,