Beauforts Dyke

Beauforts Dyke is a deep sea trench located in the Irish sea between Northern Ireland and Scotland within the North Channel. It has been historically been used for deep sea dumping of surplus, obsolete and redundant munitions. Fellows is currently providing UXO support for deep sea maritime operations in this area.

After the Second World War significant amounts of surplus and obsolescent munitions were dumped at sea. This included conventional as well as chemical weapons. Sea dumping of chemical weapons from Cairnryan commenced on 23 July 1945. Dumping was carried out using Landing Craft Tank (LCT) and the War Department steamer SS Sir Evelyn Wood. An indication of the scale of dumping can be seen using the record of dumping of Chemical Weapons at sea from Cairnryan in August 1945. This is detailed as comprising of 4,979 tons of ammunition dumped at sea.

Conventional munitions were also dumped during the immediate post war period. Examples of munitions included were 3" Unrotated High Explosive Rocket warheads and 29mm HE Spigot bombs.