On 3 June HMB Endeavour headed to dry-dock for scheduled maintenance, and now as we have reached the halfway point in her docking, all is proceeding well. For the last week or so, a team of contractors have been removing the antifouling paint from the ship’s bottom and after nearly 20 years, we are back to bare timber.
HMB Endeavour replica (front) and James Craig (background) in the Captain Cook Graving Dock at Garden Island, Sydney.
A bi-product of the stripping has been dust and grit and the poor old ship looks a little under the weather. Over the next four or five days the topsides will be sanded and oiled and the underwater areas will be primed and repainted.
Endeavour stripped bare.
While in the appropriately named Captain Cook Dock, the opportunity has also been taken to repair some of the timber normally below the water line. In the main these repairs have been minor but a necessary part of remaining sea worthy.
HMB Endeavour replica (front) and James Craig (background) in the Captain Cook Graving Dock at Garden Island, Sydney. Photo: Navy Imagery Unit
An unusual feature of the docking this year was the fact that Endeavour docked down with James Craig. To the best of anyone’s knowledge, there have never been two sailing ships simultaneously in the Captain Cook Dock.
The ship is on track to undock on 19 June and after a few trials underway, we should be back in the museum early that afternoon.
John Dikkenberg
Captain, HMB Endeavour replica
View more images of Endeavour and James Craig in dry dock on Flickr.