A BAS plow creates a V-trench along the linear route of a pipeline path and an instrumented bottle moving with the BAS plow collects BAS data indicative of the pitch, roll, heading, yaw, three dimensional positioning, speed and depth of the chassis, the shearing force applied to the seabed material and the applied tow force. The bottle can be swapped to collect the acquired data or an umbilical can be used to provide a real time stream of data. The Bas plow can simultaneously backfill the created trench, leaving an undisrupted seabed, or the pipeline can be laid in the BAS trench, which can also be made deeper and wider by additional trench cutting passes, significantly reducing the total time required for combined BAS and pipeline laying processes. The BAS plow can be released and retrieved over-the-stem of a towing vessel.