> Headlines by Category

WESTERLY, R.I. (AP) — For two centuries it rested a mile from shore, shrouded by a treacherous reef from the pleasure boaters and beachgoers who haunt New England's southern coast. "The Revenge was forgotten, it became a footnote," said Charlie Buffum, a brewery owner from Stonington, Conn., who found the shipwreck while diving with friend Craig Harger. The Navy — along with help from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution — is using high-tech sensor equipment to map the site, a first step toward retrieving possible artifacts. Two years earlier, the Revenge and its 25-year-old commander were en route from Newport, R.I. to New London, Conn., when the ship hit a reef in heavy fog. The South Kingstown, R.I., native was court-martialed, and though he was exonerated, his career languished. [...] he was posted to the Great Lakes. On Wednesday, Schwarz and engineers from Woods Hole used a torpedo-shaped underwater robot to survey the wreck site. Depending on the results, the Navy may return with divers to search for artifacts that might bear the ship's name or other evidence of its identity.