HMB Endeavour Ship in a Bottle – Large Display 23 cm

On 26 August 1768, a converted collier bark of 368 tonnes set sail from Plymouth, England, under the command of Lieutenant James Cook of the Royal Navy. The ship was HMB Endeavour — His Majesty’s Bark Endeavour — and her voyage would become one of the greatest journeys of scientific exploration in history.

Cook’s first voyage had two official purposes: to observe the Transit of Venus from Tahiti on behalf of the Royal Society, and to search for the legendary Terra Australis Incognita — the great southern continent that European geographers had long believed must exist to balance the landmasses of the northern hemisphere. What Cook found instead was more significant: the coasts of New Zealand and the eastern coastline of Australia, which he charted with extraordinary precision and claimed for the British Crown in April 1770.

The Endeavour returned to England in July 1771 after nearly three years at sea, having lost a third of her crew to disease but having produced charts and scientific observations that transformed European understanding of the Pacific world. Today her name lives on in the Australian research vessel, a NASA Space Shuttle orbiter, and countless institutions across the Pacific. This ship in a bottle captures her under full sail, bound for horizons yet unknown. Handcrafted in Ocean Relic Studio’s Zhoushan workshop, where artisans have been shaping maritime heritage into lasting objects since 1980.