Free Diving and Force Fins

[dumpsterDiver]

Group behavior. Free divers use free diving fins, so free divers use free diving fins. Nonetheless there are different needs for different divers. A free diver has to maximize his motion per breath and kick. A SCUBA diver must maximize his air consumption over time. These are different physiological needs. I have designed and experimented extensively with some very long fins that use some of our Force Fin technology, like the OPS. You can see Holly of the Ocean Future's Dive Team free diving with sharks in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands on the PBS special Voyage to Kure, available through Ocean Futures Society. She is moving beautifully well.

Why would a freediver have to maximize his motion per kick? That seems very silly. A freediver does NOT try to take a minimum of kicks, he tries to move through the water as efficiently as possible (i.e., maximum distance with least oxygen consumption)

 

[uncleavi]

Ok, you're all knowing and don't like the fins we like.
We get your point move on!
Go to Home Depot, buy some wood, build a bridge and get over it.
Put on your Guido or Ho Chi Minh fins on and impress another group with your prowess.

 

[OceanObsessed]

I don't think anyone here dislikes Force Fins. I've heard people say that they make good scuba fins and I believe it. It's just that your justification for using them as freediving fins over longblades is ridiculously weak. If one Force Fin fan finds that they outperform carbon fiber long blades then perhaps that person does not have a proper longblade kick. Watching a marine biologist on TV swimming nicely through the water is a very poor justification that it is a good freediving fin. I used to work at a lab with over 300 marine biologists and I would never ask a marine biologist for a freediving fin recommendation.

I may be inclined to believe that they are an acceptable fin for freediving if you like them. The bottom line is if they truly are one of the best fins for freediving then the market will tell you. A good product will sell itself, so you have to ask yourself what is the problem with their acceptance? Perhaps try sending a free pair to the top 20 competitive or spearfishing freedivers on the planet and let them judge the efficiency. If they find that Force Fins are a great fin for freediving then I am sure word will spread.

Nobody seems to think that they are a great fin for freediving except for a few people here and, in the Fin Doctors own words, I will chalk that up to "group behavior" within the Force Fin forum.

 

[meesier42]

The bottom line is if they truly are one of the best fins for freediving then the market will tell you. A good product will sell itself, so you have to ask yourself what is the problem with their acceptance? Perhaps try sending a free pair to the top 20 competitive or spearfishing freedivers on the planet and let them judge the efficiency. If they find that Force Fins are a great fin for freediving then I am sure word will spread.

First, of course you are going to find a bias here, SB is an opinion board, not a peer reviewed journal.

Second, if the market will define what is good and what is bad, then ForceFin would have dominated that Scuba market years ago, but alas... people have their preferences and stick to them. Not to mention that ForceFins are quite a bit more expensive than all the cheap foreign made fins, which keep many people from even seriously trying them, which directly affects the mass market appeal.

As far as being compared to Long Free dive fins. I had a pair of Cressi a couple of years ago and they were great. The reason I stopped using them was the ExtraForce TanDelta had better excelleration and manueverability. For me, I had very little difference in depth/distance covered with either fin. And the ForceFin have much better stability (in part due to the Whiskers), are easier to transport (as they a quite a bit shorter) and I was able to put booties on and keep my feet warm. Now that I am also using the Excellerator's (again in TanDelta) I think I much prefer them as I enjoy the more balanced kick cycle of the Excellerator. This fin also feels very similar to the Cressi's, not quite as long as a kick cycle, but the feel is similar.

If you want an example of "group think" go check out the fins sections, the BCD section and a couple others. According to them, the only equipment that is even safe to use is a BP/W and Jet fins (or look alike). This Scuba Board thread, aka the ForceFin thread, has a small group of free thinking people that have found a small company that they appreciate and many of us wouldn't know what to do if Bob went out of business. If you have never used the fins then you can't speak about the value or lack thereof and your comments are baseless and a waste of the time of those who are asking letigimate questions and would like honest answers and your lack of knowledge fails to help.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

You make it sound like a freaking cult! I agree with Ocean obsessed.. If the fins work for freediving.. then freedivers would buy them.... Some of the best freedive fins are already around $350 or more and if these fins are even a little bit better, a freediver WOULD jump at the chance to improve their performance. Freedivers don't have THAT much gear to buy, if there was a more efficient fin that still provided sufficient manueverability..then they would buy it.

I say give the fins out to some freedivers for them to try, if they refuse to give them back..well then you have your answer.. It would not be hard to get the fins out to the community.

 

[castanagajt]

say give the fins out to some freedivers for them to try, if they refuse to give them back..well then you have your answer.. It would not be hard to get the fins out to the community.

Most of the diving community wouldn't even try Force fins. For example, "Ewww they look fishy!" or hahaha they look stupid, they make you look like a duck!" Therefore, they are narrow minded.

Here is another narrow minded dive community example.

Oh look! Wait for it...786.00 ROFL, hahahaha. And I am sure these people has 700.00-1000.00 regulators with the mentality of "You are down there underwater, you need to spend good money for an excellent regulator!" In truth lots of 350-600 regulators can do the SAME thing with the same reliability. Yet they all have 40 year old Scuba Pro Jet, Mares Quattros, and other planks. With these kinds of expensive regulators does it make equal sense to have such inferior pair of fins?

Excellerating Force Fin Tan Delta - The Snappiest: Force Fin

Those who says that Force fin is so expensive then how does Aqualung sell 200.00 Aqualung slingshot fins and that new amphibian crap or even that mor-fin oh wait those bio-fin and atomic fin lovers,or even those Apollo bio-fin lovers. Youwould hardly ever hear them complain about the price for EVA Pplastic, eva rubber or natural rubber fins. All are also made in taiwan or what not. F

Force Fin is made in USA. So how much Did you all spend on just a pair of carbon fiber fins from Asia?

Free diving, hmm. Don't you all want the baddest spear gun which cost more than 400.00 to begin with? And 350.00 plastic fins which looks like a 70.00 pair of Aqualung Caravelle? OmerSub Millenium fin is so cool because Jessica Alba used them in "Enter the blue."

Aqua Lung Caravelle Fins in Fins,Full foot fins from Simply Snorkel

In short, Freedivers and the rest of the dive community are all trendy.

If Bob Evans were to choose to give his fins to the free diving community. You all will not be able to formulate a thorough judgemet about Force Fins. They don't act like your traditional fin and I am sure your freediving and diving community would not even have the patience to learn how to effectively use Force fins. I am sure you all would not even return his fins but instead sell it in ebay for some fast cash, anyways.

Why would he waste his time, Why are you still here? Free diving and snorkeling is listed under the main page.

 

[OceanObsessed]

Second, if the market will define what is good and what is bad, then ForceFin would have dominated that Scuba market years ago, but alas... people have their preferences and stick to them. Not to mention that ForceFins are quite a bit more expensive than all the cheap foreign made fins, which keep many people from even seriously trying them, which directly affects the mass market appeal.

I disagree. C4 Falcons are one of the most widely used high end freediving fins on the market and a pair retails for $435 at Leisurepro. 80% of the freedivers that I dive with owns a pair including myself. As DumpsterDiver indicated, freedivers don't have a problem spending some money on a product that is known to work.

As far as being compared to Long Free dive fins. I had a pair of Cressi a couple of years ago and they were great. The reason I stopped using them was the ExtraForce TanDelta had better excelleration and manueverability. For me, I had very little difference in depth/distance covered with either fin.

That is not an impressive statement for the Force Fins. What good is acceleration if the ground covered is the same? Many shortblade fins feel more maneuverable than long blades. I still think the Cressi's are more efficient and the problem is in your kick. My C4 Falcons blow my Cressi's out of the water in terms of efficiency. By using your research I can determine that my C4's will do the same to the FF.

If you have never used the fins then you can't speak about the value or lack thereof and your comments are baseless and a waste of the time of those who are asking letigimate questions and would like honest answers and your lack of knowledge fails to help.

meesier42,
I don't need to drive a corvette to know that it does not make a good car for a family of five just as I don't need to try your FF to know that they are not as efficient as high end longblades. All you have to do is apply some common sense. Stop and think about it for a minute.

-A longblade like the C4 Falcon has variable blade stiffness for different situations compared to the one stiffness for everyone Force Fin.

-The C4's have high efficiency carbon fiber blades and the Force Fins don't.

-The C4's have approximately twice the surface area as the FF, which means double the potential energy. You just need to know how to tap into it... ex: proper longblade kick.

-The C4's are sleek in terms of streamlining. The FF appears to have been designed without streamlining in mind.

I've read other threads in this forum and not all FF fans think they are the best fin for every situation as you do. They seem to appreciate the fin for what it is... a good fin.

By the way, I see you started the same rant over in another thread and it doesn't appear to be going so well for you over there either

 

[OceanObsessed]

I have a couple pairs of them, and I love them. Extra Force Tan Deltas, Slim Fins, and probably going to buy the Excellerating Force Tan Deltas soon.

The LDS that I use sells alot of them, and most all of their instructors use them exclusively. I have found that most people don't like them for 2 reasons.
1) it feels like you aren't doing anything, so people think they aren't working
2) they SUCK on the surface

my response to this are
1) they don't feel like you are doing anything because of their design, but when you compare your speed to you buddy you'll probably find you are moving along faster.
2) well this is TRUE, they do suck on the surface. But then again most dive fins suck on the surface. I fix this my swimming on my back and everything all is good.

So in a previous thread you said Force Fins, including the Extra Force Tan Deltas, suck for swimming on the surface. You corrected this problem by swimming on your back.

These are the fins that you use for freediving? Do you realize that freedivers spend most of their time face down on the surface?

I think its pretty clear at this point that you are unfairly misleading people by recommending these fins for freediving over a specialized, freedive specific, longblade fin.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

Well I am not quite as convinced as Oceanobsessed that the Force fins are inferior. If nobody has tried them, then MAYBE they are better. They certainly look to be of a divergent design.

However, the other guys characterization of freedivers as followers of fashion and equating them to scuba divers is way, way off the mark. I do both scuba and freediving (spearing actually) and they are very different sports and attract very different people.

I wear cheap freedive fins for scuba because I don't want to damage my good freedive fins. The relatively small improvement between good and cheap (cressi-sub) fins when scuba diving is negligible since you are draggin all this crap around with you.

For freediving, I want the best fins I can afford. Ain't no trends or fashion... freedivers will use what works. They have VERY well defined parameters as to performance every day! (time, depth, distance) especially with regard to fins. It is nothing like trying to decide between 10 models of mid to high end regulators, when the difference is personal preferance or imperceptable nuances in performance.

 

[meesier42]

-A longblade like the C4 Falcon has variable blade stiffness for different situations compared to the one stiffness for everyone Force Fin.

-The C4's have high efficiency carbon fiber blades and the Force Fins don't.

You need to look into the facts a little more closely. Not only are the multiple materials that each ForceFin can be made from (Originial, Pro, TanDelta) to match each divers strengths/weaknesses/preferences/kick style, The Excellerator also includes multiple flex zones to ensure an optimum flex profile. As for carbon fiber being more effcient than polyurethane, well... I can't say for sure. but I do know that the ability of the cast polyurethanes used in the ForceFin designs have the required rebound to provide thrust from the potential energy stored in the flex that you create.

-The C4's have approximately twice the surface area as the FF, which means double the potential energy. You just need to know how to tap into it... ex: proper longblade kick.

Potential energy can only be translated into forward motion IF the blade is able to effciently convert potential energy stored in flex into kinetic energy. There are lots of reasons why carbon fiber is not good for this. First Carbon fiber is highly complex weave of threads/fabric that is held in place with resin. This highly complex structure also means there is a ton of internal frictional components/stresses that have to be overcome in this conversion process which means that at least some of the potential energy stored in the flex of the fin will be lost in the conversion to kinetic energy. With the single material design of FF much less of this energy will be lost to internal losses.

Hydrodynamics clearly states that more surface area means more flow drag which is the primary friction expirienced in the U/W environment. Which is one of the reasons that it has more than once been shown in scientific studies that a short flexible fin is more efficient than a long stiff blade.

A proper long blade kick is not my problem, back in my days of freediving, I was reaching very respectible depths (although not my goal) and was staying under for upwards of 3+ minutes. As I already stated, I did not notice any difference in my performance with either the Cressi's or my Extra Force Tan Deltas. And prefered the Extras as I had more manueverability and greater ability to bring loads up to the surface.

-The C4's are sleek in terms of streamlining. The FF appears to have been designed without streamlining in mind.

To me they both appear to be very streamlined. Niether has a bulky and therefore drag inducing footpockets and clean smooth edge profiles. But this argument is hardly scientific, but then again neither is your observation.

I've read other threads in this forum and not all FF fans think they are the best fin for every situation as you do. They seem to appreciate the fin for what it is... a good fin.

By the way, I see you started the same rant over in another thread and it doesn't appear to be going so well for you over there either

First, I didn't start that rant. I simply stated my opinion, which all the Jet fin lovers have failed to agree with. too bad for them, if they would only try something new... can't help those who have closed minds about the world and are simply content to bash the opinions of those who do not agree with them

For the rest of us. I have not said that their is one fin that fits all needs. but I do believe that the Original FF is close and the many other fins in the FF line allow you to specialize/tailor your fin to the application, for this application (ie freediving) I believe that the Excellerator TanDelta is a very good fit, and although it may not be the IDEAL fin, for those who already like FF's, its a great fit as it maintains the same interface and feel, while providing more than adequate thrust, performance and a minimum of O2 consumption

So in a previous thread you said Force Fins, including the Extra Force Tan Deltas, suck for swimming on the surface. You corrected this problem by swimming on your back.

These are the fins that you use for freediving? Do you realize that freedivers spend most of their time face down on the surface?

I think its pretty clear at this point that you are unfairly misleading people by recommending these fins for freediving over a specialized, freedive specific, longblade fin.

In fact I do know that I spend most of my freediving while face down.. but then again. I don't spend a whole lot of time going places while I am on the surface, normally I am simply positioning and controlling my HR and breathing to prepare to go under. If I am swimming out to my dive location (which I was well known for going upwards of a mile from shore) I could care less what is below me as I am in swimming mode and not prepared to dive down anyway.

As for misleading freedivers, I never stated that the they are better than specialized free diving fins for the specialized activity of freediving. I simply stated that I PERSONALLY would take the Excellerators over any other fin for freediving. If stating MY INFORMED OPINION is misleading then this entire board needs to be shut down immediately, as 90% of the opinions on this board are not informed and are mearly repititions of other opinions which are equally poorly informed. And in this case, my opinion carries some weight which yours does not. Although I have not used a C4 Falcon, I have used the Cressi, Omer, and multiple Monofins, this is greatly beyond your expirience, as you have never used any of the ForceFin line much less done any real testing with them.

Well I am not quite as convinced as Oceanobsessed that the Force fins are inferior. If nobody has tried them, then MAYBE they are better. They certainly look to be of a divergent design.

However, the other guys characterization of freedivers as followers of fashion and equating them to scuba divers is way, way off the mark. I do both scuba and freediving (spearing actually) and they are very different sports and attract very different people.

I wear cheap freedive fins for scuba because I don't want to damage my good freedive fins. The relatively small improvement between good and cheap (cressi-sub) fins when scuba diving is negligible since you are draggin all this crap around with you.

For freediving, I want the best fins I can afford. Ain't no trends or fashion... freedivers will use what works. They have VERY well defined parameters as to performance every day! (time, depth, distance) especially with regard to fins. It is nothing like trying to decide between 10 models of mid to high end regulators, when the difference is personal preferance or imperceptable nuances in performance.

I have to start by saying I appreciate you open minded opinion. I also understand why you would use freediving fins (cheap or not) for scuba. as this is the fin style that you are used to, and exercise theory shows us that when you practice one style of exercise you will become more acclimated to that style and your muscles will become more effcient at performing that exercise. Changing your fins for scuba would invariably change your kick style and most likely negatively affect your freediving performance, which I think if your primary goal. If you were to do an extended test of the FF line for swimming/scuba/freediving you "may" find you like them, then again, you have very specific goals and you may not.


Back to the OP. his question was about appling FF's for freediving. And the truth is FF are good fins for freediving for many of the same reasons that they are good for scuba and swimming. They are biometrically/physiologically/dynamically effcient. Are they optimized for freediving as the C4 Falcons are... well no. But they work quite well, and for me, I prefered the ForceFin line because of the stability/manueverability without any noticable loss in performance. Now that I have been diving the Excellerators for a while I believe they will outperform the Extras that I was diving back then.