Blades vs. Turtles: First Impressions

[metridium]

Despite diving standard Blades and Blades-clones for most of my diving career, I purchased a pair of Turtles (the Jetfin clone sized for drysuit boots, XXL Jetfins being too small) to see what all the fuss is about. Recently I had my first chance to test them out and compare.

The Blades fins are long paddle-style fins; the Turtles are shorter and wider, and feature cut-outs to channel water primarily in one direction. The Blades are 4" to 6" longer; the Turtles are 1"-2" wider, depending on where they're measured.

A good pseudo-scientific test would have evaluated both styles under the same conditions, but instead I used the Turtles on my first-ever dive with double tanks....which of course means greater drag than with a single. Throw in that my last Blades dive was in a wetsuit, and the Turtles dive was dry, and you'll see there's an even greater drag differential. But still...

I was amazed at the effects the Turtles had on certain kicks.

• frog: The frog kick has always my favorite means of propulsion underwater. Based on what I'd read from tech divers about the power Turtles generate on the frog, I was really looking forward to this one.
  • With the Blades, I could generate a great deal of power - which only all-out power flutter kicks could match, but with considerably more effort - or a great deal of finesse at lower speeds.
  • The Turtles didn't live up to their hype; instead they seemed to less efficient at turning power into speed than the Blades. This could be related to the extra drag mentioned above, so I'll test further.[/list=a]
  • modified frog: In tight spaces and silty areas, I often switch to modified frog without even noticing, unless I'm paying close attention to technique.
    • The Blades are very good for this kick (except in very tight spaces); whether this is by design or practice, I can't tell.
    • Using the Turtles for this kick seemed awkward, but still generated more than adequate power. I'm looking forward to seeing what a bit of practice with them can do.[/list=a]
    • flutter: The most common scuba kick, but one I use rather infrequently.
      • The length of the Blades leads to the fins sometimes interfering with one another, and I seem to sway from side to side when using them for this kick. This instability and the energy inefficiency lead me to avoid this one, except when all-out speed is necessary.
      • The shorter length of the Turtles eliminated the interference, and I was able to exploit this kick to the max. Simply put, I was smokin'! I couldn't believe how fast and effortlessly I was moving with this kick, despite the drysuit and double 8" tanks....and with no swaying or interference, either! [/list=a]
      • modified flutter: I've never particularly liked this kick, except in the double modified form, which is metridium-speak for kicking only from the ankles. That one's great for creeping along in both tight and silty spaces.
        • Blades are indifferent for the modified flutter, but superb for the double-modified form.
        • Using the Turtles for the normal modified kick produced a surprising amount of velocity for the relative lack of effort involved. I used this kick for tooling around most of the dive, in fact. As for the double-modified, I didn't have an opportunity to evaluate it properly. Next time...
          [/list=a]
        
        I don't have enough experience with helicopter turns to evaluate the fins here.
        
        As for reverse kicks, I haven't picked up the knack just yet.
        
        Advantage: Turtles, though I really miss that frog kick. I'm not giving up on the Blades just yet.