Cargo Washes Up on British Beaches

February 2, 2009 at 2:43 pm | Posted in News | 1 Comment

It’s just like old times — like a Daphne Du Maurier saga about scrounging the washed-up cargo of wrecked vessels from the English shore. “Scavengers flocked to Kent’s beaches to collect some of the tens of thousands of planks of wood that washed ashore from a Russian cargo ship,” reads this account in The Daily Mail. Last week, the Russian-registered Sinegorsk hit rough seas and didn’t wreck but shed 1,500 tons of its sawn-timber cargo fourteen miles offshore from Sussex. Scavengers brazed icy surf to collect planks: “Despite having issued warnings about not picking up the timber, police failed to prevent locals from illegally taking the wood for themselves…. Under maritime law it is illegal to try to keep the cargo from the Receiver of Wreck — the official whose job it is to return booty to the ship’s owners. Offenders can be fined up to £2,500.”