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HMS RESOLUTION
1771
HMS Resolution was a sloop of the Royal Navy.
She was the ship
that Captain James
Cook used to make his second and third voyages of
exploration in the Pacific. She
impressed him so much that he called her "the ship
of my choice", and "the fittest for service of any I
have seen."
HMS Resolution was launched at Whitby in 1770. She was
fitted with the most advanced navigational
instruments of
the day, including a Gregory Azimuth Compass and the latest equipment for distilling
fresh water from sea water.
The second
voyage of James Cook, from 1772 to 1775, commissioned by
the British government, was designed to circumnavigate
the globe as far south as possible to finally determine
whether there was any great southern landmass, or Terra
Australis. On his first voyage, Cook had demonstrated by
circumnavigating New Zealand that it was not attached to
a larger landmass to the south, and he charted almost
the entire eastern coastline of Australia, yet Terra
Australis was believed to lie further south. Resolution
and Adventure were fitted for the voyage and set sail
for the Antarctic in July 1772.
On 17
January 1773, Resolution was the first ship to venture
south of the Antarctic Circle, which she did twice more
on this voyage. The final such crossing, on 3 February
1774, was to be the most southerly penetration, reaching
latitude 71°10′ South at longitude 106°54′ West. Cook
undertook a series of vast sweeps across the Pacific,
finally proving there was no Terra Australis in
temperate latitudes by sailing over most of its
predicted locations.
In the
course of the voyage Cook visited Easter Island, the
Marquesas, Tahiti, the Society Islands, Niue, the Tonga
Islands, the New Hebrides, New Caledonia, Norfolk
Island, Palmerston Island, South Sandwich Islands, and
South Georgia, many of which he named in the process.
Cook proved the Terra Australis Incognita to be a myth
and predicted that an Antarctic land would be found
beyond the ice barrier.
Cook's
reports upon his return home put to rest the popular
myth of Terra Australis. Another accomplishment of the
second voyage was the successful employment of the
Larcum Kendall K1 chronometer, which enabled Cook to
calculate his longitudinal position with much greater
accuracy. Cook was promoted to the rank of captain and
given an honorary retirement from the Royal Navy. His
fame now extended beyond the Admiralty and he was also
made a Fellow of the Royal Society and awarded the
Copley Gold Medal, painted by Nathaniel Dance-Holland,
dined with James Boswell and described in the House of
Lords as "the first navigator in Europe."
James
Cook's third voyage started on 12 July 1776. The purpose
of the voyage was to discover the fabled Northwest
Passage between the Atlantic and the Pacific north of
North America. He took the route from Plymouth via
Tenerife and Cape Town to New Zealand and the Hawaiian
Archipelago, and along the North American coast to the
Bering Strait where they were stopped by ice from
sailing either east or west. She returned to the Pacific
and retired in Hawaii for the winter. Here, a number of
quarrels broke out between the Europeans and Hawaiians
culminating in Cook's death in a violent exchange on 14
February 1779. The HMS Resolution returned to London in
October 1780.
On this voyage,
the HMS Resolution crossed the Arctic Circle on 17
August 1778, and again crossed it on 19 July 1779.
She brought the
first Europeans to Hawaiian islands.
This scratch-built primarily
wood HMS Resolution features:
-
Plank-on-frame
construction.
-
Blackened metal cannons on wooden carriages.
- Authentic extensive rigging system comprised of many
different sizes of rope and features numerous blocks and
deadeyes.
36" long x 12" wide x 27" tall
$2,950
Shipping and insurance in the
contiguous US included.
Other places: $600 flat rate.
This model is
in stock and will be
shipped within 5 business days.
48" long x 14" wide x 32 tall $4,260
Shipping and insurance in the
contiguous US included.
Other places: $800 flat rate.
This model is
in stock and will be
shipped within 5 business days.
Learn more about premium tall ship models
here.
Learn more about the HMS
Resolution here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Resolution_(1771)
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