Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/HMS Endeavour

HMS Endeavour

This nomination predates the introduction in April 2014 of article-specific subpages for nominations and has been created from the edit history of Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests.

This is the archived discussion of the TFAR nomination for the article below. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/requests). Please do not modify this page.

The result was: scheduled for Wikipedia:Today's featured article/April 29, 2014 by Bencherlite^Talk 08:47, 8 April 2014‎ (UTC)

HMS Endeavour was the Royal Navy research vessel commanded by Lieutenant James Cook on his first voyage of discovery to Australia and New Zealand from 1769 to 1771. She was launched in 1764 as the collier Earl of Pembroke, and purchased by the Navy in 1768 for a scientific mission to the Pacific Ocean and to explore for the surmised Terra Australis Incognita. Her voyage took her to Tahiti for the 1769 transit of Venus, then south into the largely uncharted South Pacific. In September 1769 she reached New Zealand, the first European vessel to visit in 127 years. Seven months later Endeavour became the first ship to reach the east coast of Australia, making landfall in Botany Bay on 29 April 1770. Her return voyage marred by shipwreck and the deaths of one third of her crew, Endeavour reached the port of Dover in July 1771 after nearly three years at sea. In 1776 she returned to naval service for the American Revolutionary War but was scuttled in a blockade of Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island. The wreck has not been precisely located, but relics including cannons and an anchor are displayed in maritime museums worldwide. The Space Shuttle Endeavour was named in her honour in 1989. (Full article...)

Comments from nominator -

• A total of 3 points, being 2 for age (promoted in August 2009), plus 1 for date (244 years since Endeavour reached Australia on April 29, 1770), plus 1 for me being a newbie (I am significant contributor to the article and this is my first TFA). Minus 1 for a recent similar article (the ship SS Pennsylvania, which was exactly one month before this requested date).
• Endeavour was instrumental in the founding of present-day Australia and New Zealand, and was a notable research vessel in her own right (recognised in the naming of the Space Shuttle Endeavour in 1989).
• The image is PD but a little small - I was reluctant to crop it as it is a single artwork, but grateful any guidance on whether that is ok. There are other images in the article and Commons but they all have the same problem, or are of the replica Endeavour rather than the original. The blurb comes in under 1,200 characters. Euryalus (talk) 06:37, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
• Support: Fun article, though a ship, it is a British one and from a different century than the other one that ran. Montanabw^(talk) 19:09, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
• I wonder if the modern re-use of the name for a Space Shuttle can be fitted into the blurb? I think it adds a lot regarding how the significance is still clear in a non-Commonwealth nation against whom the ship actually fought - I don't recall another similar example. (Is the comma after "anchor" necessary?) --Demiurge1000 (talk) 19:40, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
  • You're right re comma, have removed it. Have also added a Space Shuttle reference and re-edited slightly to bring the blurb to 1,195 chars so it is still under the 1,200 limit. Euryalus (talk) 22:24, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
• Euryalus, I think a cropped version of the image would be better, as the current image shows more sky than ship! Bencherlite^Talk 09:29, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Bencherlite, done and added above. Not an expert on images so if my cropping is poor please let me know and will have another go. Euryalus (talk) 10:40, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
    • Looks good enough to me. Thanks. Bencherlite^Talk 10:57, 7 April 2014 (UTC)