Deputy marshals seize possibly famous ships in Newport Harbor Cars.
These are the items regularly seized by deputy marshals. But you'll have to add about 13 Revolutionary War-era shipwrecks including one believed to be Captain James Cook's HMB Endeavour to make that list complete. The Marshals Service was recently called upon by Rhode Island Attorney General Sheldon Whitehouse to symbolically arrest and seize the vessels to prevent salvage hunters and recreational divers from vandalizing and pilfering them. The ships lie on the bottom of Newport Harbor in Narragansett Bay. The laws governing ownership claims for property in the seas are unique because water is a public property, and this often causes confrontations between competing interests.