Researchers say they may have located the wreck of the HMS Endeavour.

The ship that brought British explorer James Cook on his voyage to Australia was scuttled in 1778 to block a key harbour in the US Revolutionary War.

Now, the Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project (RIMAP) says it believes the Endeavour may be one of the 13 ships it has spotted at 9 sites in a new survey.

After its time bringing Europeans to Australia, Captain Cook sailed the Endeavour throughout the Pacific Ocean, before he met his fate in Hawaii.

By the time the ship featured in the Revolutionary War blockade, it had been renamed the Lord Sandwich.

RIMAP says it found wreckage of six vessels at one site, and it suspects there is even more material at other sites yet to be properly investigated.

It has launched a funding campaign for the construction of a multi-million-dollar storage facility to hold objects found during the excavation.

RIMAP founder and executive director Kathy Abbass says the team is planning field work to complete the underwater search.

She said she understands the Australian interest in the search, but maintains that anything found in the harbour would become the property of Rhode Island.

“We do know how significant it is to everybody and we are sensitive to that... [but] I would like to see her stay here,” Dr Abbass told AAP.

Dr Abbass used an Australian National Maritime Museum grant to locate historical documents in London, which guided her team to the general area in the harbour where the ship was deliberately sunk.

She says silt in the harbour may have preserved the vessel, but local divers say there is not much more than a few ballast stone down there.

Australia signed a memorandum of understanding with RIMAP at the Australian embassy in Washington DC in 2014, and the scientists now hope our government will help fund the search.