The Endeavour replica is returning to the museum a day early after enduring a strong southerly system off the NSW coast.

The vessel, which has been undertaking a 5 day voyage, has experienced large southerly swells and extremely unfavourable conditions. Wave heights have been in excess of 7 metres and winds in excess of 35 knots.

The ship’s Master has decided to return to home port overnight.

Rough and uncomfortable seas with a maximum wave height of 8 metres with an average height of about 4 metres. Making things worse is the confused state of the sea: residual north swell interacting with prevailing south swell. 

As Endeavour is not venturing very far from the coast due to the strong southerly, the Master has decided to seek shelter and is currently headed for the confines of Broken Bay (Hawkesbury River mouth entrance near Palm Beach). Broken Bay is large, protected from most weather, and anchoring there will give the crew some time to rest and to clean up.

The main thing is the crew (Professional and Voyage) are all in good spirits and there have been no injuries. 

Endeavour is currently 40 nautical miles east of Broken Bay, so they should be in smooth waters 8 hours from now, around 1700 this afternoon. Broken Bay is stunning, so it will be a great morale booster to anchor and mosey around these waters.

Endeavour is currently 40nm east of Kiama.

The winds overnight were not favourable for sailing, so the ship had to motor as far south as it could in preparation for the strong southerly change coming though their area in the next hour (see image 1 below). Winds are expected to reach 32 knots in their area. This is near gale force and the old Force 7. The East Australian Current (southerly at about 4knots) has helped them get as far south as possible. Image 3 below shows the predicted 30+ knot wind at 1300 today.

Unfortunately, once the southerly hits, the wind will stay southerly for the remainder of the week (see image 2 below). Normally a nor-easter would be the prevalent wind this time of the year, interspersed with the odd southerly change. This allows a square-rigged ship to sail both south and north with the different winds. With a southerly blowing all week, you do not want to end up too far to the north, unless you are prepared to do a long slow motor back into the wind and swell (uncomfortable). Square-rigged ships cannot sail to windward at all. The closest they can sail to the wind is about 100 degrees. Contemporary-rigged sailing vessels can sail 40 degrees to the wind – some closer.

According to the master, they had a very hot and sweaty night onboard. The ship managed to dodge the storm cells and avoided the brunt of the rain. They are now waiting for the change to come through, when they will make course back towards the coast and head offshore again later this afternoon.

Endeavour set sail at 3pm, motoring out of Darling Harbour under grey skies, with all onboard looking forward to the adventure ahead.