I recently got a pair of Deep Six Eddy fins. I love them! Switched from Mares Avanti Quattros and the neutral buoyancy is perfect for everything I've tried so far (Single tank , no suit, 3mm wetsuit and drysuit). Haven't used them with my CCR yet, we'll see how that goes in a week.
I have found them to be excellent in every regard until this week. I'm teaching an SDI Divemaster class this semester and I have a couple students that can't pass the swimt test yet, so I've been swimming with them to work on their strokes and just get some swimming fitness. I swam competitively in high school and have never had any problem passing any sort of dive swim test. The DM swim test is pretty easy except for two components: a 400M swim in under 10 minutes (still no problem for me even though I'm an old fart now, non swimmer students have some struggles with it though), and an 800M snorkel in under 17 minutes, which pretty much kicks everyone's butt the first time they try. That works out to a 50m kick every minute, 16 times in a row with a bonus minute of flub time. Last time I swam it, I did it back to back in two different fins (quattros then my freediving fins just to compare) in something like 13 minutes each time. This was a couple years ago and I did have knee surgery a year and a half ago, but...
With my Eddies, I can't even make one 50M lap in under a minute! It's like having 2x4's duck taped to my feet. I just can't make them go fast. Dolphin kick is moderately better. With a surface flutter, I think I can go faster with no fins on. It is mind bogglingly slow. And frogkick isn't a fast enough stroke to make the time either, or at least my frogkick isn't.
So two things:
1) Do they get better as they break in? I realize they are not optimized for flutter kicking or sprinting, but I think it's the lack of flex that is killing me.
2) I have a completely new respect for the students struggling with the swim, especially if they are in stiff fins!
It is very humbling... going to try again with my quattors to make sure it isn't just me!
I have found them to be excellent in every regard until this week. I'm teaching an SDI Divemaster class this semester and I have a couple students that can't pass the swimt test yet, so I've been swimming with them to work on their strokes and just get some swimming fitness. I swam competitively in high school and have never had any problem passing any sort of dive swim test. The DM swim test is pretty easy except for two components: a 400M swim in under 10 minutes (still no problem for me even though I'm an old fart now, non swimmer students have some struggles with it though), and an 800M snorkel in under 17 minutes, which pretty much kicks everyone's butt the first time they try. That works out to a 50m kick every minute, 16 times in a row with a bonus minute of flub time. Last time I swam it, I did it back to back in two different fins (quattros then my freediving fins just to compare) in something like 13 minutes each time. This was a couple years ago and I did have knee surgery a year and a half ago, but...
With my Eddies, I can't even make one 50M lap in under a minute! It's like having 2x4's duck taped to my feet. I just can't make them go fast. Dolphin kick is moderately better. With a surface flutter, I think I can go faster with no fins on. It is mind bogglingly slow. And frogkick isn't a fast enough stroke to make the time either, or at least my frogkick isn't.
So two things:
1) Do they get better as they break in? I realize they are not optimized for flutter kicking or sprinting, but I think it's the lack of flex that is killing me.
2) I have a completely new respect for the students struggling with the swim, especially if they are in stiff fins!
It is very humbling... going to try again with my quattors to make sure it isn't just me!
