Hollis F1 Bat Fins 'bad' for surface swims?

[dmaziuk]

Long, slow, powerful (or at least feels powerful to my muscles) kicks. Definitely using my quads. Is that correct?

With stiffer blades you're usually better off with faster and shorter kicks: the blade doesn't need as much time for flexing and then springing back. Especially if you're bicycle-kicking a bit, you may well be creating more drag than push at the bottom of the stroke.

 

[Nwcid]

Watch the finning portion of these videos and it will show you some of the most efficient ways to use your new fins.

 

[SDJustin]

Are you a diver or a surface swimmer?

I'm just a recreational diver... right now mostly diving La Jolla Shores, San Diego, California. Estimating on google maps, it looks like the surface swim to our usual drop point is just over 1000 ft (333+ yards. 1/5th of a mile) from the beach. I really noticed it on my way back in on dive 2, so was finishing what added up to 0.8 miles of surface swimming. So I guess for this site it makes me probably 80% surface swimmer and 20% diver. I more or less kept up on the first two swims, so was probably just weak legged by the final surface swim back in.

While diving I was mostly preoccupied with practicing my dry suit buoyancy and demonstrating the different skills, but did notice that frog kicking worked WAY better with the F1s than with my previous Mares Avanti Quattros. I did throw up some sand, but that was because I was bouncing off the bottom a lot playing with my exhaust valve settings, practicing feet up ascent recovery, and just generally feeling like a brand new diver again in the dry suit.

When using F1s on the surface on my back, generally do not use real long strokes because long strokes will cause the foot moving up to more breach the surface, which does't help. Stroke just deep enough to keep moving through the water at a good pace. These are powerful paddles - don't over push them.

Cool, thanks for the advice. I was keeping my fins under water, so not wasting energy splashing around, but was doing long, powerful strokes instead of smaller paddles. I'll try the shorter strokes on my next dive (hopefully this next weekend).

F1s just tire me out quickly. Apollo's are "floppy" but total distance moved per level of effort is much greater.

Makes sense. I will shop around for a floppy fin that fits my dry suit boots (maybe the Apollo's or even just the XLs of my good ol' Mares Avanti Quattros) and maybe use those when I have long surface swims, and switch to my F1s when diving off the boat as I did feel like I had more precise control with the F1s, and they did move me through the water! I was just slow/tired at the end of the second dive!

Thanks all for the info/feedback, appreciate it!

-Justin

 

[SDJustin]

I bought XL Mares Quattros and did the same surface swim / dive as last weekend. The Quattros are clearly faster on the surface, but not as good at frog kicks.

 

[Candiru]

I dive F1 in drysuit and quatro in wetsuit. In both cases swimming on my back is significantly faster. My hollis F2 fins are the fastest for me at the surface. I swim these "normal style".