A MEMBER of Captain Cook's family is retracing the seafarer's steps by journeying from Australia to his native North-East in a replica of the adventurer's famous ship.

Jon Preston began the voyage of a lifetime on Saturday in a replica of the Endeavour, the sailing ship in which Cook left Whitby to discover Australia.

It was Mr Preston's ancestral links he is descended from Captain Cook's sister that won him a prized place on board the ship. There are no direct descendants because the explorer's six children had no offspring.

Now the information technology consultant will be finding out whether he has inherited his ancestor's fearlessness as he begins a journey around Cape Horn, the first time the £10m vessel has attempted the treacherous route.

Mr Preston was due to fly home to the North-East at the end of January from Western Australia, but when he heard the Endeavour was returning to England from a dock 500 yards from his apartment, in the port of Fremantle, he could not believe his luck.

He had been seconded to Australia by his employer, Oracle, last July, and was due to return to his family in Gosforth, Newcastle, and Wolsingham, County Durham, at the end of January.

But it will not be a leisurely trip back. Mr Preston is one of 40 volunteers among a crew of 56 who will be working hard over the next four months to keep the ship on course by climbing the rigging, swabbing the decks and furling the ship's 28 sails.

All the work is being done as it was in the 18th Century, using hard labour.

As well as the dangers involved in navigating Cape Horn, the volunteers will be on the look out for icebergs which break loose from the Antarctic during the summer.

The Endeavour is due to dock at Hobart, in Tasmania, in about a fortnight, before setting off for Brazil, and will arrive in Whitby on June 21.