As mentioned, we offer a variety of fins using different materials which results in a large variation in price.
As usual there is a variety of opinions, but the scuba divers who use “long fins” or freedive fins tend to be pretty big fans of them. Of course they have negatives in that they are more cumbersome on the boat for the 60 seconds (before you splash) and their length would make turning around in a tight silty shipwreck more of a challenge. However, once in the water they have excellent efficiency and more than enough power.
A couple of comments were made about the vulnerability of fiberglass and carbon fiber to damage. In the past, carbon fiber blades especially have had a history of fragility. However, I think all modern fins being manufactured now are pretty robust.
No matter how strong you are or how hard you kick, it is EXTREMELY unlikely that you will damage one of our fin blades. Before we stock a particular fin, we literally try to crack them or break them by kicking as hard as possible during testing. We test them with scuba and freediving and they also have to be tested in a mechanical bending machine that delivers many thousands of cycles. They all are pretty tough and handle the normal stresses of swimming extremely well.
In general, you probably want to avoid a giant stride entry, because with the large blade area, the trailing fin puts a ton of stress at the toe of the footpocket. A diver can enter with their feet together and enter heel first, or roll to side or do a back roll or even land backwards.
Polymer (plastic), fiberglass and carbon fiber can handle many, many dives and kick cycles. What the blades can not handle well is abuse. If someone drops a tank on the blade, or slams a heavy weight on the very tip of the blade or closes a hatch cover on the tip, then a crack or damage can occur. This seems obvious, but it should also be mentioned that the long fins should not be thrown on the deck and then walked on by other people. If the diver treats the fins with just a little bit of respect, they should last years of hard service.
Scuba diving involves heavy tanks, often hard weights and sometime rough conditions and gear can get abused. Many scuba divers are more comfortable using a pair of inexpensive polymer fins in this environment compared to a $500 pair of carbons from another manufacturer. Ours are much less expensive BTW.
In general, fiberglass and carbon fiber blades have better performance with respect to converting the energy from the divers kick to moving the diver, however to be honest, most scuba divers are not so attuned to getting 100% performance that they will be fine with an inexpensive polymer blade. They will generally recognize a SIGNIFICANT improvement compared to their typical scuba fin.
For freedivers, who measure their time underwater in seconds, a small improvement in efficiency can be very important.
Hopefully I have not diverged too far off topic, but I wanted to emphasize that a scuba diver who can afford a more expensive freedive fin, should not be hesitant to buy a higher performance fin because of excessive concerns over the robustness of the blade.
Thanks!
dano
As usual there is a variety of opinions, but the scuba divers who use “long fins” or freedive fins tend to be pretty big fans of them. Of course they have negatives in that they are more cumbersome on the boat for the 60 seconds (before you splash) and their length would make turning around in a tight silty shipwreck more of a challenge. However, once in the water they have excellent efficiency and more than enough power.
A couple of comments were made about the vulnerability of fiberglass and carbon fiber to damage. In the past, carbon fiber blades especially have had a history of fragility. However, I think all modern fins being manufactured now are pretty robust.
No matter how strong you are or how hard you kick, it is EXTREMELY unlikely that you will damage one of our fin blades. Before we stock a particular fin, we literally try to crack them or break them by kicking as hard as possible during testing. We test them with scuba and freediving and they also have to be tested in a mechanical bending machine that delivers many thousands of cycles. They all are pretty tough and handle the normal stresses of swimming extremely well.
In general, you probably want to avoid a giant stride entry, because with the large blade area, the trailing fin puts a ton of stress at the toe of the footpocket. A diver can enter with their feet together and enter heel first, or roll to side or do a back roll or even land backwards.
Polymer (plastic), fiberglass and carbon fiber can handle many, many dives and kick cycles. What the blades can not handle well is abuse. If someone drops a tank on the blade, or slams a heavy weight on the very tip of the blade or closes a hatch cover on the tip, then a crack or damage can occur. This seems obvious, but it should also be mentioned that the long fins should not be thrown on the deck and then walked on by other people. If the diver treats the fins with just a little bit of respect, they should last years of hard service.
Scuba diving involves heavy tanks, often hard weights and sometime rough conditions and gear can get abused. Many scuba divers are more comfortable using a pair of inexpensive polymer fins in this environment compared to a $500 pair of carbons from another manufacturer. Ours are much less expensive BTW.
In general, fiberglass and carbon fiber blades have better performance with respect to converting the energy from the divers kick to moving the diver, however to be honest, most scuba divers are not so attuned to getting 100% performance that they will be fine with an inexpensive polymer blade. They will generally recognize a SIGNIFICANT improvement compared to their typical scuba fin.
For freedivers, who measure their time underwater in seconds, a small improvement in efficiency can be very important.
Hopefully I have not diverged too far off topic, but I wanted to emphasize that a scuba diver who can afford a more expensive freedive fin, should not be hesitant to buy a higher performance fin because of excessive concerns over the robustness of the blade.
Thanks!
dano
