Sydney — Australian maritime experts said Thursday they believed they've found the wreck of one of the most important ships in the history of the South Pacific after it was scuttled in the U.S. more than 200 years ago.
But archaeologists in the U.S. quickly countered by saying the findings were premature and a breach of contract in their joint research.
For 22 years, maritime archaeologists have been investigating several ancient shipwrecks in a 2-square-mile area of Newport Harbor, Rhode Island. That's where James Cook's HMS Endeavour was believed to have been deliberately sunk by the British during the American Revolution.
Cook had earlier sailed the ship around the South Pacific in a pioneering voyage before landing on the east coast of Australia in 1770.
On Thursday morning, Kevin Sumption, the chief executive of the Australian National Maritime Museum, held a news conference in Sydney after alerting media that he'd be making “a major historic maritime announcement.”
Sumption said archaeologists were convinced they had found the wreck of the Endeavour after matching structural details and the shape of the remains to those on original plans.
“I am satisfied that this is the final resting place of one of the most important and contentious vessels in Australia's maritime history,” Sumption said.
But in a statement issued soon afterward, D.K. Abbass, the executive director of the Rhode Island Marine…
