The 22-gun British warship 'HMS Ontario' that went down with as many as 130 people aboard during a gale in 1780, was discovered astonishingly well-preserved in the cold, deep water of Lake Ontario in the United States.

According to a report in the daily express today, Jim Kennard and Dan Scoville used side-scanning sonar and an unmanned submersible to locate the 80-ft sloop that sank during the American Revolution.

It is the oldest shipwreck and the only fully intact British warship found in the great lakes, Scoville and Kennard said.

"To have a revolutionary war vessel that's practically intact is unbelievable. It's an archaeological miracle," Canadian author Arthur Britton Smith, who chronicled the history of the HMS Ontario in a 1997 book, the legend of the lake, was quoted as saying by the British tabloid.

Kennard and Scoville said the water in the area where it is resting is up to 500ft deep and cannot be reached by anyone but the most experienced divers. The sloop was discovered resting partially on its side, with two masts extending more than 70 ft above the lake bottom.

"Usually when ships go down in big storms, they get beat up quite a bit. They don't sink nice and square. This went down in a huge storm, and it still managed to stay intact," Scoville said.