Aqua lung slingshot to jet fin, worth it?

[eelnoraa]

I have been using AL slingshot since OW cert & never use anything else. It is OK, but I have no base to compare it to. I notice most dry suit DIR diver use jet fins, I wonder how much of a difference there is between them. Is it worth a trade?

 

[Akimbo]

Depends on why you want to trade. I have used Jetfins since the late 1960s so there is a familiarity bias in whatever I write. I tried the Slingshots and didn’t notice enough difference to bother. In a very short time, the Slingshots showed signs of fin cupping and started to make a little noise.

The Jets are simple, rugged, and reliable. I had one pair for over 25 years and changed the straps maybe 4 times. I recently got a pair of F1s due to the relatively large foot pocket to use with a drysuit rock-boot. I doubt I can tell the difference between the Jet & F1 without looking at my feet.

I have very wide (6E) feet and couldn’t get Jets to fit. I would estimate that the Large Jetfin and the Regular Slingshot have comparable size foot pockets. I had to get an X-Large F1 for the rock boots, which is larger than the largest Jetfin. Hollis also makes an XX-large F1.

 

[eelnoraa]

what do you mean by "fin cupping"?

 

[Akimbo]

what do you mean by "fin cupping"?

The molded arc of the harder plastic portion of the fin is reducing the radius — one fin more than the other, but both more than when they were new. Compare plastic bladed fins in the dive shop’s rental fleet to those on the shelf and you will see the kind of distortion that more rigid plastic blades are prone to.

Does this impact performance? I can’t say. It does cause me concern over their ability to hold up in the long term. The added failure potential of the rubber bands probably represents a greater deterrent to the DIR community than any other.

In your case, why bother changing until you have a functional reason to? You can probably find something more important to drop a Jackson or two on.

 

[TSandM]

Given where you are, I'm quite sure you can find somebody who will lend you a pair of Jets to try, and you can see what you think of them. But I'll warn you -- the first time I dove with them, I thought the Mafia had put me in concrete boots. But that same day, I got the frog kick right for the first time.

I agree with Akimbo, though -- if you like your fins, and they do what you want them to do, and you are just doing recreational dives, there's no urgency to change fins. I don't know the suitability of the Slingshots for kicks like frog and back kicking, but if they work for that, you don't really need to change them until or unless you are doing dives with bigger risks.