Fins and manoeuvrability

[JohnnyC]

My biggest gripe is that if I'm in a situation where I need the high speed performance of a Force Fin, and willing to give up the other performance benefits of the myriad of fins typical of a technical diver, I'll be on a scooter, working less hard than if I were to swim at the same pace. It's just physics, if I'm swimming faster, I'm working harder, and to me, the incremental gain of Force Fins just doesn't justify the ridiculously high price.

The problem with the bicycle analogy is that the performance difference just isn't that great. Not that Force Fins don't swim really fast in a straight line with a flutter kick, I just have so many other needs out of a set of fins. If super fast in a straight line is what I find necessary, I get several orders of magnitude greater performance out of a scooter, without the increased air consumption rate. And with the dearth of excellent sub-$2000 scooters on the used market, it's a no-brainer. Hell, you can find Gavin's in great shape for $1000-$1500. That' just a little more to maybe at most double what a set of Tan Delta Force Fins cost once you start adding whiskers and straps and sundry.

 

[danvolker]

I didn't pay $250 for mine to drag it with me everywhere. Fair enough, that is the intended usage where efficiency is important. Though OP's question was manoeuvrability and precision, not racing.

I'd argue that the Excellerating Force Fin is more precise than a jetfin....worst case, the same in precision and maneuverability.
The one advantage I see to the SB Jetfin, is the stiff and larger surface area of it's blade, produces better zero motion hover control than the Force fins, or other smaller bladed fins...In highly technical penetrations far into the bowels of a shipwreck, when you get to laying line and dealing with issues in a no movement scenario...the jet fin is superior...The problem is, this is not a fun or useful thing to do if you dive for marine life....it is exploring where there is very little worth seeing.
If you are looking for Gold, fine....in one of 10,000 wrecks you might dive on, there might be an insignificant chance of you finding treasure.
I dive for marine life, and the level of precision needed to give the SP Jets the edge, is something that I will wear my Jetfins for--should I decide to do one of these treasure search penetrations.....In way too many thousands of dives to count, this has NEVER come up as something I was missing out on with my DiveR's or Excellerating Force Fins to choose from.

If you had to demonstrate perfection in a motionless hover, there would be an advantage to a jet fin....As soon as you wanted to demonstrate efficiency in fin swimming, the Jetfin would become inferior.

 

[RJP]

...take a pair of Scubapro Jet fins, and try to swim at scooter speeds for a minute or so...

Sort of like knocking a pair of sneakers because they don't help you run at "bicycle speeds for a minute or so"

 

[danvolker]

Sort of like knocking a pair of sneakers because they don't help you run at "bicycle speeds for a minute or so"

Except the Excellerating Force Fins will allow this scooter speed for a minute, or 50 minutes straight, and still be as precise as the Jets in slow speed maneuvering.

I see the one advantage for the Jets as the zero movement hover, due to their larger control surface. Two big pieces of wood shaped the same way, could be just as effective in this no motion context....My point was that the jets are tired old technology, and the one thing they are absolutely the best at--is almost a useless skill for "most" people.....yet---a great many people buy these fins, under the mistaken notion that they are best for penetration diving. I'm just saying most penetration, will not leverage this aspect of the fins.....If you are a diver that will sometimes do this type of penetration, then you should probably have jets for these dives, and Excellerating Force fins for the rest of your dives

---------- Post added September 25th, 2015 at 08:15 AM ----------

Also.....it has to be a really tight penetration dive, for the fins to NEED to be short fins....Now, due to my normally trying to pick the right tool for the job, I tend to choose the Excellerating Force fins when I plan a penetration into a ship wreck....
However, there are plenty of penetrations I have done, with the Big DiveR freedive fins on...and there was zero silt resulting....Here is one penetration dive like that
[video=youtube;vGB8XNq8QF0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGB8XNq8QF0&[/video]
Penetration begins at around 35 seconds in....you can clearly see there are tight parts to this dive, but there would be no advantage in using jets here...only liabilities.....When you go out the large hole on the far side, you enter into a significant current, and if you were using jets, you would be a leaf in the wind---being shoved wherever the current takes you...with the DiveR's, I did whatever the jewfish were doing, with no increased breathing rate. The force fins would have been the better choice for this dive, but it was not a problem.

 

[gkrane]

Let's compare a $200 Kmart bike, to a $6000 Racing road bike.
Could you say that the Road bike is 10 times better than the Kmart bike? For the people that can "settle" for a Kmart bike, clearly the answer is that the expensive race bike is a ridiculous waste of money--that there Kmart bike does everything a fancy race bike would do for them--for very little money. For the cyclists that care about performance, the Race bike is very worth the money, and some will pay 10K for even more performance. These same cyclists would consider the kmart bikes no better than disgusting junk, that effectively prevents the deluded buyers of them, from ever experiencing what riding a bike should be like. This pretty much sums up my view of fins as well.

Quatros...Jetfins, etc...these are Kmart fins....

There is a large majority of scuba divers that think that scuba divers should swim slowly, and apparently believe that there is no reason to buy fins that can allow efficient high speed travel with huge distance potential...This is against their scuba religion.....The Kmart performance fins -- like the Jetfins and split fins and the rest of the junk fins most scuba divers swear by, will remain their end all, and be all.

Although I have no experience with these Excellerating Force Fins and their patented vortex producing whiskers, I don't buy into this logic or explanation at all. To pretty much state that the other are Kmart fins sounds absurd in a way. These are fins, not racing bikes with hundreds of lighter precision machined individual custom components made from much better materials. What are some other high end fins I can look into so I know what my options are in the elite finning arena, or does force fin already have the market cornered with these $500 semi self propelling foot scooters. I don't mean to sound like an ass but this seems like kool aid chugging to me.

 

[danvolker]

Although I have no experience with these Excellerating Force Fins and their patented vortex producing whiskers, I don't buy into this logic or explanation at all. To pretty much state that the other are Kmart fins sounds absurd in a way. These are fins, not racing bikes with hundreds of lighter precision machined individual custom components made from much better materials. What are some other high end fins I can look into so I know what my options are in the elite finning arena, or does force fin already have the market cornered with these $500 semi self propelling foot scooters. I don't mean to sound like an ass but this seems like kool aid chugging to me.

Hey...I did not mean to suggest that the whiskers were the solution to more speed....the way the Force fins cup water on the down stroke, and the snap you can create, and the ease of the up stroke....these are all massively different with the force fins than the way a jet fin pushes you. The whiskers just exagerate the amount of water the cupping action of the force fin downstroke, can move.
As to believing this...i said from the get go....there is no way you are going to believe this, without trying a pair...and their are plenty of owners of these fins happy to let you try theirs for a day or more. If you were diving in south Fl, yo8u could try mine for many dives, and see for yourself.

I used to be very anti-Force fin, when I thought all they were, was the classic force fin design...which is a smaller gear than the excellerating force fin. I was a major pain in the butt to Bob Evans....Finally he got me to try the Excellarating FF's, and Extra Force, and all of a sudden the wierd look of the fins took a back seat to the amazing performance they achieved....and performance is what I am after.

 

[stuartv]

buoyancy in water. If you dive F1's with a wetsuit, especially with steel tanks, you are forced to put trim weights on the shoulder straps to be able to hover. F1's and Jet Fins are negative in the water, Dive Rite XT's/Slipstreams are neutral in fresh, slightly positive in salt, so it helps tremendously with trim.

I use F1s with my dry suit and steel tanks. For diving a single tank (steel or Al) in a thin wetsuit, I use Atomic Blades, which are neutral in the water. I like the Atomics better for speed and maneuverability. But, the weighting for decent trim trumps that and the F1s ARE nice. Just not AS nice (to me) at the Atomics.

 

[dmaziuk]

These are fins, not racing bikes with hundreds of lighter precision machined individual custom components made from much better materials.

Better material is part of it: blade returns more of the stored energy when it snaps back. A stiff unbendable blade would probably be even better at energy transfer but then it'll be more taxing on the legs. The trick is having enough bend to cushion the kick and at the same time convert more of the kick's energy into propulsion. That's the theory anyway.

 

[gkrane]

Better material is part of it: blade returns more of the stored energy when it snaps back. A stiff unbendable blade would probably be even better at energy transfer but then it'll be more taxing on the legs. The trick is having enough bend to cushion the kick and at the same time convert more of the kick's energy into propulsion. That's the theory anyway.

Sounds like a marketing theory.

 

[danvolker]

Sounds like a marketing theory.

SB arguments tend to go theoretical. .thing is, you can try these for free and learn the truth first hand...or it could be argued for hundreds of posts as conjecture