Bournemouth Beach Improvement Scheme (BIS4.3) 2008

A section of beach between Boscombe and Southbourne was replenished this winter by the Fareham-based Westminster Dredging Company, using the same Dutch dredger Oranje, the same pipeline and the same Ovenden beach crew as for BIS4.2 last year.

The project suffered bad-weather delays.  Originally projected to take just 3 days, the eight hopper loads of sandy beach material were delivered to the beach over a period of one week.

Beach material was dredged off the Isle of Wight and brought by the dredger close to the beach at Groyne 30 (see map).  The dredge/sail/discharge cycle from the IoW took approximately 11 hours.

Because the waters of Poole Bay are so shallow, the dredger  needed to pump the sand ashore through a long pipe that lay on the sea bed, known as a 'sinkerline', and the beach was then levelled by bulldozers.

i For more detailed replenishment process information and pictures see Phase I.