The offshore Northern shrimp (Pandalus borealis) fishery in Eastern Canada is currently harvested by factory freezer vessels using bottom trawls. This fishery is a major contributor to the regions’ economy, however, bottom trawling typically is associated with negative benthic impacts. We evaluated the at-sea engineering performance of a roller footgear using underwater cameras. This footgear is designed to roll, limiting negative benthic impacts and reducing fuel usage, compared to non-rolling rockhopper footgear. We describe and document a new technique for measuring the time to complete a rotation in seconds (TCR) of bosom and quarter-wing footgear sections on hard, mixed, and soft seabed. Our results showed that footgear sections were rotating at extremely low rates. Results predicted a statistically significant 184 % increase in TCR when comparing the bosom to the quarter-wing section (p = 0.035). TCR on hard seabed ranged from 23.6 s in the bosom to 43.4 s in the quarter-wing section, while mixed (from 169.0–311.1 s) and soft (from 862.6–1587.6 s) seabed types produced significantly longer TCR (p < 0.001). This study provides evidence that roller footgear is not rotating at the velocity expected by the industry and offers essential information to further develop innovative footgear with reduced seabed impact.

目前，加拿大东部的北方对虾（Pandalusborealis）渔业是由工厂冷冻船使用拖网捕捞的。这种渔业是该地区经济的主要贡献者，然而，拖网捕鱼通常与负面的底栖生物相关。我们使用水下相机评估了滚轮式鞋的海上工程性能。与非滚动Rockhopper跑步鞋相比，该跑步鞋设计为可滚动的，可限制负面的底栖冲击并减少燃料使用。我们描述并记录了一种新技术，用于测量在硬，混合和软海床上完成胸和四分之一翼鞋类部分的旋转所需的时间，以秒为单位（TCR）。我们的结果表明，鞋袜部分以极低的速度旋转。p  = 0.035）。硬质海床的TCR范围从怀里的23.6 s到四分之一翼段的43.4 s，而混合型（从169.0–311.1 s）和软质（从862.6–1587.6 s）的海床类型产生的TCR明显更长（p  <0.001） 。这项研究提供了证据，证明轮式鞋跟没有以业界期望的速度旋转，并为进一步开发具有减小的海底冲击力的创新鞋带提供了必要的信息。