The Shore Plank Redemption

I hadn't managed to take an image today until redemption appeared in the form of these old rotting wooden planks on one of the banks of the River Medway in Aylesford. 
I had noticed them before and went to take an image a few days ago but couldn't find them - I only later realised (duh!) that they are completely submerged at high tide.
I'd like to imagine that it was the hull of a smuggler's boat that had run aground on a stormy night , been abandoned by the crew of ne'er do wells and left to rot over a couple of hundred years in the cloying sediments of the eroding river bank - but there is probably a much more prosaic explanation!