The Abandoned Shipwreck Act

43 U.S.C. 2105 Section 6, Rights of ownership.

(a) The United States asserts title to any abandoned shipwreck that is—

(1) embedded in submerged lands of a State; (2) embedded in coralline formations protected by a State on submerged lands of a State; or (3) on submerged lands of a State and is included in or determined eligible for inclusion in the National Register.(b) The public shall be given adequate notice of the location of any shipwreck to which title is asserted under this section. TheSecretary of the Interior, after consultation with the appropriate State Historic Preservation Officer, shall make a writtendetermination that an abandoned shipwreck meets the criteria for eligibility for inclusion in the National Register of HistoricPlaces under subsection (a)(3) of this section.(c) The title of the United States to any abandoned shipwreck asserted under subsection (a) of this section is transferredto the State in or on whose submerged lands the shipwreck is located.(d) Any abandoned shipwreck in or on the public lands of the United States is the property of the United States Government.Any abandoned shipwreck in or on any Indian lands is the property of the Indian tribe owning such lands.

But...

In the Sea Hunt case, the federal government assumed for the purpose of the litigation that La Galga was underwater off of Assateague Island even though within the files of of the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge is this author's report that demonstrates otherwise.They made a conscious decision not to verify the wreck's identity before they urged the court to give away a piece of our heritage.

The court then asserted that the vessel was not abandoned and remained the property of Spain. In The Hidden Galleon you will read that the captain of La Galga, an agent for King Ferdinand VI of Spain, declared that the "Owner of the land owned the ship" and did abandon his ship. Recently discovered documents in Spain support the abandonment by the captain as he made no attempt to salvage his ship as it lay half full of water. Today, the federal government is or should be the owner of the wreck. It appears that the federal government did not follow the language in Section 6 (d) and (b) as the wreck was abandoned, and at the time of the court decision, property of the federal government. The government then disposed of government property without adequate public notice. Furthermore, they used a forum to rule on the question of abandonment which did not have actual jurisdiction over the wreck. The federal court was a special court, sitting as a court of admiralty, whose jurisdiction is limited only to navigable waters. See also the National Register.  The complete Act.