The Beaufort cipher is a reciprocal cipher.

The Beaufort cipher should not be confused with the "variant Beaufort" cipher.

The Beaufort cipher is a reciprocal cipher, that is, Decryption and Encryption algorithms are the same.

Beaufort altered the Vigenère cipher, by reversing the cipher alphabet, and the resulting variant is called the Beaufort cipher.

Due to the similarities between the Beaufort cipher and the Vigenère cipher it is possible, after applying a transformation, to solve it as a Vigenère cipher.

This is different from the Beaufort cipher, created by Sir Francis Beaufort, which nonetheless is similar to Vigenère but uses a slightly modified enciphering mechanism and tableau.

A mariner, Francis Beaufort (inventor of the Beaufort scale and the Beaufort cipher), then a captain in the Royal Navy, had already charted the Lycian coast, and surveyed and reported on the Lycian ruins, which, in the times, was a physically demanding task.