In February 2002, BBC News issued headlines on its website: ‘Timber galore for Cornish wreckers’. The Russian cargo ship Kodima foundered in heavy seas, spilling thousands of timber planks into the sea, which washed up on the beaches around Whitsand Bay. ‘Scavengers have swarmed over a Cornwall beach to retrieve timber from a grounded cargo ship’, the News announced, ‘risking death in the waves. Tight laws control salvage, but the Cornish wreckers have a long heritage.’ The articles go on to repeat oft-told tales of Cornish wreckers: the clergyman who asked his parishioners to wait for him to remove his robes, so ‘we can all start fair’, and the prayer repeatedly ascribed to the Cornish: ‘Oh please Lord, let us pray for all on the sea; But if there's got to be wrecks, please send them to we.’ The Kodima was the latest wreck to experience the activities of the wrecker, joining the 1997 wreck of the container ship CV Cita, which ‘fill[ed] the sea with “gifts” for the islanders of Scilly’. In an interview cited by the article, Ed Prynn of St Merryn claimed: ‘Everybody was down there with their diggers, right out in the surf. Nearly every house built after that had oak and teak beams. They won't stop us doing it – it's our culture. It's in our blood.’ And yet, in an additional article, the News cautioned: ‘The coastguard is also warning people who are salvaging thousands of planks of pine wood washed up from the Kodima that the activity is illegal.’

The wrecks of the Kodima and the Cita highlight an important truth. Even in the twenty-first century, crowds flock to the shoreline as soon as word is received that cargo is coming ashore. Some arrive on site simply to watch the proceedings, but others come in anticipation of ‘free’ goods. Likewise, the idea of ‘finders keepers, losers weepers’ seems to be inherent within our psyche. How often have we played the game, or have gone out beachcombing, hoping to find treasure that may have washed on the shore? We begin as children, searching for pretty shells, but even as adults we hope to find something of value or beauty, whether rocks, shells, or even floats from fishing nets or buoys, tags from crab pots or fenders lost from boats.