This work details the author's search for famous shipwrecks with his nonprofit organization NUMA.

In 1978 adventure novelist Clive Cussler funded and participated in an attempt to find John Paul Jones's famous Revolutionary warship, the USS Bonhomme Richard.

The expedition was not successful; however, it eventually led to the formation of a nonprofit organization named after the fictional agency in his novels, the National Underwater and Marine Agency, and dedicated to the discovery of famous shipwrecks around the world.

In The Sea Hunters, Cussler documents the search for nine famous shipwrecks while also offering dramatized imaginings on the events that led up to the loss of the ship.

To date, the group's most successful find is the (disputed) discovery of the final resting place of the Confederate submarine Hunley, detailed in Part 6.