Captain Cook's missing ship found after sinking 250 years ago | Hacker News Reader

Captain Cook's missing ship found after sinking 250 years ago

independent.co.uk

174 pointsrmason55 comments

I'm sure the rename had good reason but I can't imagine going from a name like "HMS Endeavour", what a great name, to "Lord Sandwich" ... in modern times that sounds like some lighthearted forum username.

The HMS Lord Sandwich's namesake is almost certainly former 1st Lord of the Admiralty John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich && person that the dish is actually named after.

He was also head of the British navy ("First Lord of the Admiralty") at the time and a great supporter of Cook's, so there's even a closer connection specific to the Endeavor. Cook named Hawaii the "Sandwich Islands" after him.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Montagu,_4th_Earl_of_Sand...

The Earl of Sandwich was not a naval officer; the First Lord of the Admiralty was the chair of the Board of Admiralty, which was a committee formed to undertake the duties of the office of Lord High Admiral. The Board of Admiralty had responsibility for the administration of the Royal Navy. Operational command was (and remains) the responsibility of the Sea Lords; the most senior serving officer of the Royal Navy is the First Sea Lord.

What were the existing names of the islands?

It’s the Hawaiian islands

Hawaiʻi > Etymology: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii#Etymology

I love that they also marked up "Sandwich" as a tag, to make it easier for you to explore other articles they had published about sandwiches.

It also likely gave us Sandwich, MA, which consequently gave us the police there, who are literally “Sandwich Police”

Which is doubly funny because it's a tourist/retirement town with a larger than it needs police department (whole region is this way, not just this town) so they inevitably fill their time with with activities befitting the name.

Are you saying the excessive number of police results in absurd enforcement practices, or are you saying their officers are large because they spend all day confiscating sandwiches?

> they spend all day confiscating sandwiches?

Enforcing a "no food or drink" posting in a public place that exists solely to drive business to vendors (who've doubtlessly paid an unnecessary chunk of flesh to the government for access to the captive market) is exactly the kind of thing I can see them doing.

Yes

Or you can find an art gallery next to a Subway, where Sandwich artists work side by side.

Same reason we get modern stupid names like "Crypto.com Arena". Those who pay the money and/or give the orders get to choose the name, and they like putting their own names on things.

In Seattle we have the "Climate Pledge Arena"

I’m hoping to get that changed to “Lord Sandwich Arena”

Only when you forget that "sandwich" was a name of a place first (and the person with a title associated with it ". Putting stuff between bread is named after a person and may well have been poking fun at him originally.

The bigger question is if making a Sandwich is considered Cooking.

Slow clap

The even bigger question is, does a hot dog count as a sandwich?

In case you were unaware:

http://cuberule.com has solved this question definitively.

It's clearly an Usonian Taco.

Even better:

    "Sir Osis of Liver"

Hey at least it wasn’t Boaty McBoatface

At that time the Royal Navy had in excess of 500 active ships and creating names must have taken some effort - there was a HMS Terrible and HMS Fanny.

> HMS Terrible

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/terrible

3. exciting terror, awe, or great fear; dreadful; awful.

4. formidably great.

I think it's a perfectly suitable name for a warship. The notion of "terrible" describing the inferior quality of something is a much more recent meaning, I believe.

Yeah, but compare "HMS Fanny" to "HMS Indefatigable."

Especially considering the British colloquial usage of "fanny" I think someone was in a particularly good mood that day.

That one I have no explanation for.

The dreadnought class of warships have the best moniker.

Don’t forget HMS Cockchafer, Spanker, and Tickler.

Hey, I resemble that remark.

The Endeavor is not to be confused with Shackleton's ship the Endurance (as I had in my mind), which went down after getting mangled by pack ice and never got the chance to be officially renamed the "Lord Hamburger".

Maybe they did a public poll to name the vessel...

Didn't they announce this 3 years ago?

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/feb/03/capta...

That article says that the Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project didn’t agree with the identification. This new article is about a published article on the discovery. The articles are totally different.

I read it not so much as a disagreement over identification but over publication rights, which is the norm in academia.

> who said the finding was “premature” and a “breach of contract”, claiming that it was the lead organisation for the study

“Premature” and “breach of contract” are very different things.

I wonder what additional work was done so as to find that announcement now, years later, is okay.

Has anyone found a clear indication of the wreck's location?

There's been a lot of interesting ship activity in Narraganset Bay lately, at least as seen when crossing the Jamestown / Newport bridges. I'm curious if any of it's related to that wreck.

I don't believe they have made it public.

I worked this wreck with RIMAP and had to sign an NDA before boating out, but that was back in 2020

The map shows a location of a line of deliberately scuttled ships to block the harbor between Rose Island and Battery Park. Most of the ships were salvaged, the Endeavour was not.

Interesting, thanks. I guess I was probably barking up the wrong tree then.

Most of the interesting ship activity I've been seeing lately is further west and north.

And URI GSO's research vessel has been closer to its main dock, which shouldn't have surprised me one little bit.

A bit odd to have an Al Jazeera video on https://www.independent.co.uk/

> Lord Sandwich was one of thirteen vessels scuttled (deliberately sunk) to act as a submerged blockade

That's a pretty sucky end for a vessel that made so much history.

how tf u can make website so awful to the mobile user?

Seems fine on Firefox Android. Possibly uBlock helps there are a bunch of empty white things so dunno.

A once-decent newspaper whose broadsheet I used to read in the late 90s. Long gone the way of the Daily Mail et. al., alas. I see the Indie's URL now and don't even bother.

Yup. Switch to Firefox or fennec and use ublock. Clean story. Even can use text mode.

TBH not a ton better on the desktop...

My parent brain read this as Captain Hook instead of Captain Cook and I've gotta say, I'm a little disappointed

Now I finally realize why the character is named Captain Hook!

It’s just a coincidence that he has a hook for a hand. He was Mr Hook for years before that accident where the croc bit his hand off.

You are not supposed to cook a sandwich

Panini, anyone? I take it you've never had a good Cuban sandwich, then.

Toasted sandwich? They're pretty much the god of sandwiches.

I beg to differ

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