STS YOUNG ENDEAVOUR

"SYMBOL OF TWO CENTURIES" 

Young Endeavour left England on 3 August 1987 on her 21,000km
maiden voyage to Australia to be presented to the Australian
people on 26 January 1988 as a 200th birthday gift from Great
Britain. Seven thousand young Australians applied to be part of
the crew for this historic voyage but only 12 were selected. The
other twelve were young British volunteers. All told, twelve male
and twelve female young people undertook the three month voyage
to the Antipodes under the command of Captain Chris Blake, one of
the few English masters to hold a masters ticket for square
rigged vessels.

Long before she set sail, Young Endeavour had become symbolic of
the two centuries of Australia’s and Britain’s entwined history.
The $3.7 million barquentine started life in May 1986 in
Lowestoft, Suffolk, where she was built by Brooke Yachts - she
was originally planned as a schooner but was specially modified
for the bicentennial journey. Her designer, Colin Moodie of
Britain, is one of the world’s most experienced yacht designers.
The man behind the project was Arthur Weller, Chairman of the
Britain-Australia Bicentennial Schooner Trust, a body set up to
design, build, raise funds for and deliver the vessel. Half the
cost was provided by the British Government and half by the
people of Britain.

Young Endeavour is 44 meters long and is capable of 14 knots
under full sail. Twin- masted with nine sails rigged fore and
aft, she has square sails on her foremast. The masts are more
than 30 meters high and under them lie a gold British sovereign
and an Australian dollar coin in keeping with sailing tradition.
The hull, painted “Britannia Blue”, is steel. The main deck is
teak and the transom and nameplate depict wild flowers of each
State as well as the United Kingdom’s national flowers.

She resembles a 19th century sailing ship and conjures up images
of that transportation era but she has many hidden extras. Two
diesel engines for port manoeuvrability, a watch and chartroom
fitted with complex instruments including GMDSS facilities and a
state of the art radio room. Adry store, deep freezers and four
water tanks all sit below decks along with a reverse osmosis
plant. There is also a small laboratory area for oceanographic
experiments, a donated library of 1,00 books and films. There is
a twelve berth cabin for the male crew members and two six berth
cabins for the girls. Most importantly, there is a mess for the
24 volunteers and a galley. The six Royal Australian Navy crew,
Including the skipper use the same galley, but eat in the
wardroom locally referred to as the cafe bar.

On 2 June 1987 in the port town of Lowestoft, Suffolk, the
Duchess of Kent officially named the vessel and early in July she
was a special salutation for Her Majesty the Queen. When the
vessel left Cowes on the Isle of Wight on her maiden voyage, she
was given a 21 gun salute in the presence of His Royal Highness
Prince Philip.

Young Endeavour is a unique and special vessel and the Australian
Naval Amateur Radio Society is Proud to have been granted
permission to feature this very beautiful Tall Ship on its Award
Certificate and QSL card.

The Society’s web site has more photographs of the vessel as well as
information about the Society.
http://www.zip.com.au/~sb/anars

Some of the following photos were taken by Kevin VK2CE during a visit on board in February 1999.

Click on the photos for an enlargement.