cream of the crop... only in that certify more people, nothing to say they are better
Hey Meesier, WKPP does not certify divers..they are the top deep cave exploratory team in the world, and the people who originated the complilation of Hogarthian techniques and ideas, known as DIR DIving. Through the 90's, many people begged to learn the WKPP style of diving, but could not become a team member. Somewhere around 2002 or 2004, One of the lead exploriers in the WKPP, Jarrod Jablonski, formed GUE to teach DIR diving. They are certainly the most difficult agency to get a tech card in, and many people can never get certified GUE. The point of mentioning them, was that no one in deep cave exploration has a better record than the WKPP, and they mandate Jetfins and frogkick for the high silt areas of caves.
I am not trying to detract from FF's, as I have said they are great fins for many divers....I am trying to help you to avoid a representation that is not optimal for Force Fins....and clearly cave divers are a very tiny subset of all divers....if Bob Evans wants this little niche market, then he is just going to have to create a new cave diving Force fin that kicks butt in it's ability to frog kick
I had C4's, then I realized that my free dives where ~15 seconds longer in my FF Extra's and sold them. The question was to show me someone in Jets do it.
The 40 meter c4's?
I would be tempted to fly you down here to S Fla to show me this in person
In my experience, there is no fin that comes close to the c4 40 meter fins....at least for my physiology...yours must be very different than mine.
sounds like a test similar to what I did a couple years ago, the Force Fin Pro's where the top. We didn't include long blades. You would be surprised just how elite the cardo systems of a Seal is, many of the ones I knew where the same guys that I would free dive with and they were no joke,
I have a friend who was a SEAL Trainer....and I know a couple of SEALS.
Yes they have good cardio, but they would be competing with someone with elite cardio, who has fins more adapted to big muscles and big cardio ( than FF's are. )
And of course, SEALS could NEVER use C4 freediving fins for missions---the C4's are extremely fragile, so forget about jumping out of helicopters..I have to dive in head first off the back of dive boats to avoid blade overflexing. And as gear, the C4's have to be handled carefully. This is no problem for a scuba diver, but it would be a deal breaker for SEALS.
Swimming close to the bottom at speed, why would I do that? The only time speed is of value is spearfishing or over coming a current, neither time are you worried about being close to the bottom.
If you dove in a high current environment like South Florida, Palm beach in particular, you would quickly appreciate how much the current SLOWS DOWN where it contacts the bottom--this being caused by "skin friction drag". If you want to go sideways in a huge 4 mph current, you get right on the bottom--and the same is true if you want to go up current. When we lobster dive off of Juno ( north palm beach) in the 95 foot deep stuff over the offshore side of the crown, there are many blowouts you come to, full of lobster, but typically a hundred yards or more apart...and you may have to swim very far sideways, and even up current sometimes, to get into a good blowout with 50 to 100 lobster in it.
Or, you could drift by a wreck previously unknown, and to reach it, be force to swim sideways and upcurrent....you would be belly to the bottom, and you would envy the ease I can do this with my C4's
Again, when Bob Evans wants to make a real Freediving fin, I have every expectation that I will be able to brag about that fin, the way I now talk about the C4's...It is a different category of fin, for a different type of diver than the masses...and as Bob has gone after lots of sub categories of divers, this is something I expect he will do someday..hopefully soon.
Regards,
DanV
