70' Eldridge-McInnes US Army T-Boat (1954) - ENDEAVOR

The Endeavour is a US Army TBoat built by National Steel and Shipbuilding in 1954. It was the launch at Alcatraz until the prison closed in 1963, and later at McNeil Island prison in Puget Sound. Upgraded and lengthened, today it serves as a research vessel in Alaska, from Southeast to the Arctic.

Its full-displacement hull is welded from Corten steel. Driven by a single Detroit Diesel 8V71, it has a range of 3,000 nautical miles at 8.3 knots burning about 5.0 gallons per hour. It sleeps 10, has a stand-up engine room and shop, a full-sized washer and dryer, a watermaker, paravane stabilizers, and carries two shore boats and an assortment of kayaks and canoes.

I’ve owned the boat since 2007 and have been living aboard pretty much ever since.

** Why this boat?

I wanted a boat that could go anywhere in the world, but especially where the charts are spare and the conditions rough and unpredictable.

** What’s good about this boat?

It’s as strong as an axe, it handles the seas (and ice) with aplomb, its systems are simple (simple enough for me to fix far from port), it’s relatively cheap to run, and it’s comfortable to live on.

** How do you use the boat?

I run scientific expeditions in Alaska off the boat. Most of my clients are scientists but I’ve started talking high school and college students out to do benchmark studies of remote wilderness sites. I love lighting up kids about science, nature, and wilderness.

** What are some of your best trips?

In 2023 we filmed walruses in the Bering Sea with the BBC for a month. Then we went up to Kotzebue Sound, above the Arctic Circle, to recover hydrophone buoys that had been listening in on whales. We came back through the Diomedes, were in Russian waters for a bit, and touched on St Lawrence and Nunivak Islands, hosted a high school group on a study in Kukak Bay north of Sitka, then came down to Southeast and monitored humpback whales in Frederick Sound, ending the season with a family hunting trip. In all, we did a bit over 5,000 nautical miles. That will be a tough year to beat. Except next season…..

** What’s your favorite story about the boat?

Huh. Impossible to choose. The objective of any good captain is to avoid having dramatic stories. I’ve been lucky. I do write a blog about the boat’s adventures, available for free on www.AlaskaEndeavour.org.

** What piece of the boat’s history stands out?

It was built in the same yard as the Exxon Valdez (which was built years later, of course). A lot of classic gangsters rode the boat to Alcatraz. We have a newsreel of it taking the last of the prisoners off the island in 1963.