Fin Doctor, thank you again, much appreciated. I'll definitely let you know if I have a chance to hook up with Captain Calhoun.
One more question, if I do end up picking up a new pair of force fins, what would you recommend? As a bit of background, I dislike most of the paddle fins that I've tried. I do like my Volo Power fins for travel and love my Bio-Fins. I'm also a fan of the Tusa Xpert Zooms and disliked the Atomic split fins (I found them to be too stiff for my liking).
In terms of cost, I think I will probably be restricted to choosing between the original and pro force fins. Thank you again, cheers
I am going to go with Bob and Blair on this one. The Originals and the Pros are two of the best, and I have used almost every one of the top fins out there (Jets, Quattros, Apollo, Atomics, etc...) and found that none of them came up favorable to the FF. The only other fins would consider are the
TanDeltas and the
Foils.
As Blair already pointed out that the power is drawn from a large muscle groups (quads, gluts, hip flexors, abdominals) when compared to almost every other fin on the market that rely heavily on the calfs and hamstrings , so you'll have NO problems moving through the water with any of the fins.
With all of the testing that I have done over the last 10 years, the Basic FF shape in any of the 3 materials; Originals, Pros, and TanDeltas, feel and perform almost exactly the same. The primary difference is that each one requires a progeressively lower kick frequency for the same speed and therefore more "leg torque" to achieve that speed. This principle is similar to riding a bicycle, you CAN climb the hill in a high gear but it takes a ton of torque at low pedals speeds to do it, alternatively you can downshift to a smaller gear and turn the pedals over faster with much less torque. its just a gear equation, where you can convert angular velocity to torque or vica versa.
Next, the stiffer fins will allow a higher speed output... but you must remember that hydrodynamic drag (aka flow drag, or parasitic drag) is
Fdrag= -1/2 pAV^2, where
p= density of the fluid (seawater)
A= surface area of the moving body
V= velocity
what this means drag is proportional to the SQUARE of speed, therefore, since your legs/body can produce a constant amount of power (ie. overcome a set amount of drag, because at a constant speed F drag = F thrust), your speed is dependant more on your legs than your fins. HOWEVER, NOT ALL FINS ARE CREATED EQUAL, some fins are more efficient than others. Since FF harness more powerful muscles, theory says that
1) you have more muscle power available to propel yourself with, and
2) your endurance should increase, since your not taxing small muscle groups that tire and cramp quickly.
Down to the point, all this means is that YOU need to find the fin that allows YOU to achieve the greatest efficiency at YOUR BEST SPEED based on physical conditioning, type of diving, loading (current, drysuits, doubles, cameras etc...).
I suggest that THE FIN for 70% of people is the Originals or the Pros, and another 10% the TanDelta. This is because you
CAN easily adapt to a higher kick frequency but you
CAN NOT quickly adapt to being stronger, only fitness, practice, and exercise can help here.
The other 20% of divers are split between specialist (scientific, commercial, cave, etc...) and competitive swimmers (who have substaintially higher leg power and a mastery of proper kick technique allowing them to benefit from the additional power of the Extra Force TanDelta or Excellerating Force TanDelta), not to say that you MUST be one of these people to benefit, but to say they will see a substative benefit in both speed and endurance.
Don't worry about the "other" fins in the lineup, once you know the fins work for you then you can think about them. The other fins are specialist fins meant for specific benefits.
