Two long oak beams, some 9.5 metres in length, were discovered towards the front of the wreck beneath the starboard side. They had been assembled longitudinally with a hook-scarf joint to form one of the beams that supported the decks. A lack of high-quality wood no doubt led shipwrights to adopt this solution. Notched oak rails fastened to one side of the beam were used for hanging tools, as one can see today on the working replica of Captain Cook's ship, the Endeavour. This functional arrangement provides a glimpse of the lives of the men who lived below decks – sometimes hundreds of them.
