CAPTAIN Cook’s famous Bark Endeavour, is returning to its spiritual home in Whitby.

The North Yorkshire coastline is to get a permanent new visitor attraction next week, when a full-scale replica of the historic ship docks in Whitby, where the original vessel was built in 1764.

An Australian-built replica has visited Whitby three times in the past 21 years, but on Friday, May 25, the town will welcome the only other life-size version in the world, which was built on Teeside.

Once moored, the vessel will undergo a transformation into a visitor attraction and learning centre, which will open to the public later in the summer, to coincide with the 250th anniversary of Cook’s first voyage on the Endeavour.

Its temporary mooring will be in front of the harbour master’s office, before it moves to its eventual home on Endeavour Wharf.

The replica will set sail from dry dock in Middlesbrough at 10am next Friday and is expected to arrive in Whitby harbour at around 2pm.

The arrival will be all the more poignant as the original ship was built in Whitby, by ship builder Thomas Fishburn, as a collier bark (a cargo ship) named the Earl of Pembroke, which was used to haul coal along the coast, before being registered and renamed by the Navy in 1768.