Developing an Ergonomic Sea Scallop Knife Handle

CFF is working alongside sea scallopers to transform firsthand experience into practical solutions that improve health and safety offshore. This fisherman-led project highlights how simple, worker-driven innovations can meaningfully reduce strain in one of the industry’s most physically demanding tasks.

Shucking sea scallops is a high-repetition, high-force job that requires sea scallopers to perform the same fine-motor action thousands of times per shift while standing in awkward, constrained postures. During trips lasting as long as two weeks, the hard working men and women in the sea scallop fishery will shuck for 12 or more hours per day. A repeated-measures, field-based study was conducted with 20 professional scallopers in Massachusetts to evaluate a worker-designed hand-tool modification intended to reduce muscular loading during scallop shucking.

Sea scallopers will routinely add friction tape to their knife handles to make them easier and more comfortable to grip while shucking, reducing flexor muscle activity by 14% compared to a knife handle that is not taped. Using 3D scanning, we are evaluating the custom knife handles created by sea scallopers to design an ergonomic handle that reduces the risk of developing musculoskeletal disorders like carpal tunnel syndrome.

These findings demonstrate that simple, fisherman-generated modifications to hand-tool design can meaningfully reduce muscular demands during scallop shucking. CFF would like to give a special thanks to the scallopers that participated in this study. Funding provided by: Northeast Center for Occupational Health & Safety, George Mason University, Ideas the Work Incubator

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