how many times do I need to go over this, YES, there was in fact exactly one true scientific study that included ForceFins. it was performed in a flume tank with the diver connected to pulse oximeters, HR monitors, O2 consumption and lots of other instruments. It was performed by the University of Buffalo Department of Physiology and Biophysics. The study clearly showed that all divers were able to swim the same speed but maintained it longer, while having lower heart rates and lower oxygen consumption.
and although follow on studies performed there, that have included the new split fins have confirmed these results, even though ForceFins were not included in the follow on, other fins that were in both confirmed that nothing on the market matches them. From a conversion I had with the leader of the studies confirmed for me that they have never seen anything that approaches the efficiency of the ForceFin. He further elaborated that they do not understand why they ForceFins are good as the equations they have can not even describe their motion.
The most telling conclusions that he has published included (speaking of all fins, not ForceFins)
1) "the divers invariably ranked the stiff fins as the best and the flexible fins as the worse, which did not correlate with the objective evaluation of these fins."
2) "The transition and recovery phases provide little thrust, and in fact, added to the overall drag, and had to be compensated for by an increase in kick frequency to meet overall thrust requirement"
3) "it would be advantageous to maximize the average thrust during the recovery... However, the anatomical joints and muscular power a human diver uses during fin swimming (hip, knee, ankle) and body attitude in the water does not allow symmetrical range of motion when flexing and extending. This fact leaves fin improvement to increasing thrust in the power phase and minimizing drag on the recovery and transition phase"
4) "fins where the successive [trailing edge] segments that progressed to 90 [degrees] to the horizontal produced the most thrust during the power phase.
what does all of this mean, well it means that a reasonably flexible fin that you can flex to nearly perpendicular during the down kick will provide the most thrust at lowest work. Efficiency can then be maintained by having the fin minimize itself and therefore its drag for the recovery phase. In other words... do what ForceFins already do.
