Shipwreck

Often, attempts are made to salvage recently wrecked ships to recover the whole or part of the ship, its cargo, or its equipment. A good example of this was the salvage of the Kaiserliche Marine High Seas Fleet at Scapa Flow in the 1920s. The unauthorized salvage of wrecks is called wrecking.
Shipwrecks and the law
Shipwreck law determines important legal questions regarding wrecks, perhaps the most important question being the question of ownership. Legally wrecks are divided into wreccum maris (material washed ashore after a shipwreck) and adventurae maris (material still at sea); although some legal systems treat the two categories differently, others treat them the same.