Jones then uttered one of the most famous lines in U.S. history.

“I have not yet begun to fight!” he yelled to the British captain.

The crew of the Bonhomme Richard then boarded the Serapis and fought the British. They captured the ship after a three-hour battle, but the Bonhomme Richard sank off the northeast coast of England.

Now, 227 years later, researchers at the nonprofit Ocean Technology Foundation, based at the University of Connecticut at Avery Point, believe they may have found the wreck of the Bonhomme Richard during an expedition to the North Sea this past summer.

Using magnetometers to detect metal and side-scan sonar to gather images of possible wrecks, the group identified five previously undiscovered sites that may be that of the 151-foot-long ship. They are located in 50 to 60 meters of water about 16 to 20 miles off Flamborough Head. Work is now being done to analyze data from the sites.

Next summer, the group plans to return to the North Sea and use sonar that can penetrate the sandy bottom, along with remotely operated vehicles to get better images of the wrecks. They hope to then use divers to recover artifacts such as cannon and engraved tankards that could be traced back to the ship.

“I feel we have a pretty good shot at finding it. There's one wreck down there we like a lot,” Melissa Ryan, the project manager for the Ocean Technology Foundation, said Monday. “The archaeological work could take years depending on what's down there.”

Peter Reaveley, who now lives in Miami but played on the cliffs of Flamborough Head as a boy, has been researching the Bonhomme Richard for the past 35 years. He has been on several unsuccessful expeditions to find the ship's remains but said he is “cautiously optimistic” about the current effort.

“This is the best methodology we've ever applied to this,” said Reaveley, who has provided his extensive research, including 30 eyewitness accounts of the battle, to narrow down the search area.

The development of the methodology began three years ago when retired U.S. Navy Capt. Jack Ringelberg of Stonington, president of the Ocean Technology Foundation, was introduced to Reaveley through a friend who was trying to produce a television program about the Bonhomme Richard.

Ringelberg, who owns JMS Naval Architects and Salvage Engineers, soon teamed up with Reaveley.

Because exploration technology has advanced so much over the past decade, Ringelberg said it was natural to link the story of the ship with that technology. He also knew that Reaveley had already done much of the research needed to locate the site.

“I know that 90 percent of the work is research and 10 percent is the execution,” he said.

Ringelberg's group first created an hour-by-hour timeline by taking eyewitness accounts of the battle, which people could see from shore; information from ship's logs, such as wind direction, weather and battle damage assessments; the tides at the time, and sightings of the ship's position during the 36 hours it drifted after the battle.

Rick Fernandes of Ocean Technology built a three-dimensional model based on the Bonhomme Richard's plans to help determine how the damaged hull would have drifted. The group then worked with a Rhode Island firm that came up with computer models to determine the direction of the drift. It is the same method the Coast Guard uses to track oil spills and lost ships.

Charts of wrecks that have been identified further reduced the search area where the five targets were located this summer. One of those targets revealed a large concentration of iron ballast; it is known that the Bonhomme Richard carried 250 tons of iron ballast.

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Jones was attempting to attack a convoy of 40 British supply ships when he encountered the Serapis, an escort ship. He engaged the Serapis despite being outgunned by the British ship.

Witnesses reported that the blazing hull of the Bonhomme Richard was so badly damaged that cannonballs shot in one side were flying out the other. Half of Jones' 300 men died in the battle.

“Jones should have died 10 times that day,” Ryan said.

The battle turned when one member of Jones' crew threw a grenade that went below the deck of the Serapis, igniting its gunpowder stores and burning many of the British sailors.

After the captain of the Serapis surrendered, he and Jones shared a glass of wine, and Jones returned his foe's sword out of respect.

“That battle showed the world the Continental Navy was something to be reckoned with,” Ryan said.

She said it also buoyed American spirits and persuaded the French to loan the United States more money for the war. This year is the 100th anniversary of Jones' body being returned to the United States from France. Jones is now buried in a crypt at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.

Despite the importance of the ship in American history, Ringelberg said his organization has had difficulty obtaining funding for the work and still needs to find $250,000 for next summer's expedition.

Except for technical assistance from the Naval Historical Foundation and some funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Navy and the U.S. government have provided no financial help.

Ringelberg has received assistance from the British government and has been talking with French officials about help. It was the French who lent the Bonhomme Richard, a converted merchant vessel, to Jones. They were never paid for it. One hundred French marines also served aboard the ship, which was named after Jones' friend, Benjamin Franklin, the author of “Poor Richard's Almanack.”

Reaveley said that attempting to find the ship has grown from a hobby to a quest since he retired several years ago.

“I've had a lot of personal success and happiness in America, and I thought finding John Paul Jones' ship would be a thank-you,” he said.

Reaveley said he hopes to recover a cannon from the ship and present it to the U.S. Naval Academy. He said artifacts could be displayed in museums in the United States, Great Britain and France.

Finding the ship would also mean a lot to Tom Mayrant of Oxford, N.J., whose great-great-great-grandfather, John, was a 16-year-old midshipman aboard the Bonhomme Richard. Mayrant was stabbed in the leg with a spike while leading the boarding party. One of his fellow midshipmen was Nathaniel Fanning of Stonington.

“It's phenomenal what they're doing,” Mayrant said. “There's been a lot of other guys to go after it, but they seem to have more cooperation than the other entities and they've eliminated a lot of the other shipwrecks in the area.”

Ringelberg is scheduled to discuss the search when he appears at the Stonington Harbor Yacht Club at 6 p.m. Nov. 17. The talk is open to the public. For reservations, call 535-0112.