(NECN: John Moroney) - Divers have discovered the remains of a famous war ship off Westerly, Rhode Island. Several cannons, an anchor and other metal objects have been found. They are believed to be from the USS Revenge which wrecked off Rhode Island in 1811.
Diver Charlie Buffum's mom gave him a book about shipwrecks off Westerly, RI.
Then, he and his friend went diving.
But these two guys sat on this discovery for 5 years, they say it wasn't easy keeping a secret after doing 100 dives at the same spot.
But with the 200th anniversary of the shipwreck of the USS Revenge coming up Sunday, now was the time to reveal their finds.
It was 200 years ago, the USS Revenge was on its way through these waters off the coast of Watch Hill, Rhode Island on its way from Newport to New London.
Its commander was the legendary naval hero Oliver Hazard Perry, a Rhode Island native, renowned for his victory over the British at the Battle of Lake Erie in the war of 1812.
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But before that victory ever happened, the Revenge wrecked when it hit a reef in a storm on January 9, 1811.
It hadn't been seen in close to two centuries.
That is, until two men from eastern Connecticut, armed with this metal detector, decided to find it.
"Oh man, I mean, we were like little school boys, you know. We're going along, seeing nothing on the metal detector, not even any can tops or fish hooks or anything, and next thing you know, the dial shoots up to ten," said diver Charlie Buffum, of Stonington, CT.
"On the third dive we went in a straight line and bingo, we hit a cannon, the first cannon. We found four more cannons they were long cannons, they are sixty inches and we found what we believed to be the anchor, a ballast bar, and just regular unidentified metal objects," said diver Craig Harger, of Colchester, CT.
The two divers, Harger and Buffum, a distant cousin of Commander Perry, are not archaeologists, they're not even professional divers.
They're a brewer and a carbon dioxide salesman, who just went for it.
"No one's ever said anything about the USS Revenge, you ask people around here, 'ever heard of the Revenge, (they say) I don't know what you're talking about," Buffum said.
They have now - judging by this packed room of history buffs and locals at the Ocean House in Watch Hill, Rhode Island.
So where is the site of the wreck? You can see a blinking red light on a buoy and a green buoy about a mile away from the Ocean House.
The remains are below that.
Now to be clear, the discoverers have not found indisputable proof that this is in fact the Revenge, but they are hopeful in time they will.
"You can't verify it we don't believe until you pull it up and see if it has markings, U.S. Navy markings," Harger said.
So what's next for the Revenge?
The U.S. Navy has property of the remains, Buffum and Harger are hoping they'll be able to be excavated from the water and someday put in a museum.
There's talk that this changed the course of history.
According to Buffum, Perry got court martialed and ultimately exonerated in a New London court in 1811, but furloughed by the navy after the crash - then he was later assigned to the Great Lakes, making it possible to defeat the British on Lake Erie.
