This being the 50th year of the Gaspee Days celebration, Rep. Joseph McNamara can think of no better time than to find whatever remains of the British schooner Gaspee that colonists burned as she was hard aground off Namquid Point on June 10, 1772.

McNamara has taken his quest to cinematic heights with the help of Capitol TV to produce, “In search of the HMS Gaspee,” a 38-minute documentary that will premier Thursday, Nov. 13 at the Pilgrim Senior Center. Show time is 7 p.m.

But there’s more than the documentary that gives an overview of the burning of the ship and, as McNamara sees it, the first blow for freedom. The incident preceded the Boston Tea Party. A state legislator, McNamara is also a member of the Gaspee Days Committee and aims to promote a marine archeological study of the remnants of a wooden shipwreck off Gaspee Point (which he knows is not the Gaspee) as a means of training a volunteer crew to conduct a study of a second site that closely matches the location of where the ship was burned. That “target” second site was identified by Professor Roderick Mather, director of archaeology and anthropology at the University of Rhode Island, in 2003. That survey was halted because of a lack of funding.

Finding what’s left of the Gaspee would be an exciting development and serve to promote the historic significance of the area, attracting tourists to the state, while highlighting the state’s rich historic heritage, McNamara said.

Just as important, in the short term, is placing the spotlight on the 50th celebration, said Gaspee Days Committee chairperson Erin Flynn. She says a bigger than ever parade bringing back many of the marching groups from earlier parades is planned for June 12. The 5K Gaspee race likewise promises to be larger than ever, as will the fireworks display following a performance of the Warwick Civic Orchestra at Pawtuxet Park. The concert and fireworks will be held June 5, a week before the parade.

The documentary, featuring members of the Gaspee Days committee, including Warwick historian Henry Brown (an 8th generation descendant of John Brown, the man who led the colonists who torched the Gaspee) and even members of Gaspee Troop 7 start the search for the Gaspee with state archivist Gwen Stern. She referred to a number of documents from 1772 calling for an investigation of the ship’s burning and the rewards offered by the governor and the king for information leading to the arrest of those responsible. Those documents mention the location of the burning – Namquid Point.

Starting at the State House, the documentary takes the viewer to Namquid Point – now Gaspee Point – and then to the remains of a hull that is clearly visible at low tide, further to the south in Occupasstuxet Cove. Further to the south, on all that is left of Green Island, are the remains of two additional ships.

Might any of those wrecks be the Gaspee?

Brown emphatically says “No” about the island hulls. According to his research, one was a coal barge built during World Ward I and later abandoned on the island. Brown said it burned in 1935. That leaves the remains of the vessel south of Gaspee Point.

Dr. Kathy Abbass, of the Rhode Island Marine Archeology Project, which is seeking to locate all 13 British transports sunk in Newport Harbor in the days leading up to the Battle of Rhode Island in August of 1778, believes the remains to be about 100 years old. That eliminates it as the Gaspee. But documenting this vessel could be an important training experience prior to a survey of the site identified by Mather in 2003.

McNamara envisions the Rhode Island Marine Archeology Project conducting a survey of the unidentified hull, easily accessible at low tide, early next summer.

In the documentary, McNamara asks Abbass why the Gaspee would have pursued the colonist vessel Hannah into the shallow of the point, knowing that it ran the risk of running aground. Abbass points out that locals knew what vessels were carrying and that the Hannah had been transporting “hundreds of pounds [money].” Also, the cargo of a captured ship was confiscated and often shared by the captors.

From McNamara’s perspective, the “risk/reward” for the Gaspee was minimal, with the prospect of only having to wait out the tide should they run aground on the sand.

Naturally, what Captain William Dudingston had no way of knowing is that, when the Hannah’s crew told of the grounding of the Gaspee, that John Brown would rally a group at Sabin Tavern in Providence that rowed out and demanded that Dudingston and his crew leave the boat.

After a brief resistance, during which Dudingston was shot and wounded, the Gaspee was set afire and history was made. And now there could be a new chapter to the tale.