Jet Fins A short US history

[David Wilson]

Burna:

If you are genuinely interested in vintage diving equipment, perhaps you can help our forum a little by providing an Australian perspective on the topic in the same way as I try to supply UK-specific insights. I have a Turnbull Swim Equipment catalogue from the 1960s and my first mask was a green Turnbull Searaider Professional in the late 1950s. The M. D. Turnbull Distributors Pty Ltd company, which once traded from the address 18 Ricketty Street, Mascot, Sydney, Australia, is perhaps best known for its Continental full-foot fins:

As you can see from the image above, their distinctive blades have an outline of Australia embossed on them. You can still occasionally find Turnbull Continental fins on sites like eBay. I have a pair of Giant Continentals, formidably long and powerful full-foots which came with instep straps to keep them secure, in my modest collection of vintage diving equipment.

You may be able to help me find out more about this New South Wales company. I wonder, for example, whether it still exists in some form or other. I am curious to know too whether the company manufactured all its own products, considering that, if my copy of their catalogue is anything to go by, they not only included masks, fins, snorkels, swim & surf boards and spearguns, but also ice boxes, drink coolers, wine racks and wig stands.

Back in the 1960s, most advanced countries of the world manufactured their own basic diving gear on their own territory. In the UK, the two companies Haffenden-Britmarine and Typhoon supplied the British market with masks, fins and snorkels, exporting some of their products to continental Europe. Now only Typhoon survives. Australia once had its own fin, mask and snorkel manufacturer too in the form of Turnbull, but now basic gear distributors there such as Eyeline and Land & Sea outsource to Malaysia and Taiwan.

So, putting your favourite Slingshots to one side for the moment, what can you tell us about M. D. Turnbull, the historical source of Australian-manufactured Continental fins, recently described in a Gumtree classified advertisement as an "Aussie icon"? If these fins are news to you, do you know any divers locally in Victoria who might remember them? Please feel free to start a new thread about this topic. As a Brit, I'm always pleased when I learn about vintage diving gear made in countries other than the UK and US. US diving equipment history is already well documented thanks to the Skin Diving History site at

Skin Diving History

living legends such as Sam Miller and the rest of the gang in this forum. On the other hand, non-US diving equipment history is in serious danger of being lost for ever when the people who snorkelled and dived in the 1950s and 1960s are no longer around. You can help reverse this trend in the case of Australian diving history!

 

[8dust]

Nice re-direct.
Well done.

 

[Sas]

If you are interested in Aussie stuff perhaps contact the Historical Dive Society. HISTORICAL DIVING SOCIETY, SOUTH-EAST ASIA - PACIFIC

 

[David Wilson]

I hear what you say, Saspotato, and I have in the past ordered the odd HDS magazine when I've spotted something of interest in the index tables. I dare say I may get some answers at the good folks at the HDSSEAP.

The HDS societies of the world do a brilliant job recording the major events of diving history and they are a mandatory read for anybody interested in the grand history of our great sport. I guess, however, that I'm looking for something more like a non-US version of the Skin Diving History site, which is full of old advertisements from the 1950s for the full range of gear, not only the regulators, but also the masks, fins, snorkels and suits of the era, great historical sources. It's ironic that the only image I could find of a Turnbull Continental fin is on the American Skin Diving History site - I couldn't find a single picture of one on an Australian site, yet thousands of Australians must have begun their life-long dalliance with snorkelling or diving in the 1950s and 1960s shod with these fins. America is very fortunate to have the more down-to-earth artefacts of its diving history catalogued and documented by sites such as the Skin Diving History one. There's nothing like it elsewhere in the world, where the history of diving, other than what is covered by the HDS societies in a more academic way, is in the hands of diving historians who focus understandably, but for me as a vintage snorkeller rather frustratingly, on the development of regulators rather than the evolution of more basic gear such as fins. Turnbull may have been forgotten now in Australia because it didn't retail scuba gear, just snorkelling equipment. But snorkelling is how most scuba divers started back then.

Finally, I don't really want to single out particular countries to blame for negligence of their diving histories. The UK, where I live, is equally bad about this. When I try and interest people on the British Sub Aqua Club forum in the British history of diving gear, the silence is deafening. I'm just having a general moan!

 

[Tortuga68]

Nice re-direct.
Well done.

Don't tell me we're actually going to discuss the thread topic for a change :shocked2:

 

[Nemrod]

Looks like the Jet Fin has lot's of copies if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Diverite Express Classic:

Classic Fins and Universal S/S Spring Straps - Dive Gear Express

Turtles Fins:

XS Scuba FN305 Turtle Scuba Fin

OMS Slipstreams:

OMS Drysuit SCUBA Fins http://www.OMSdive.com

And of course the dullard Rocket was a Jet Fin wannabe, here is a newer version of the slug Rocket that probably sucks worse than the original lead sled:

Scuba Center | Aqua Lung Rocket Fins, Super Rocket Fins, Rocket II Fins...

N

 

[David Wilson]

Beuchat, the French diving company which designed the original Jet Fin back in the early 1960s, produced them first in a full-foot version. Now the Turkish diving equipment company Free Sub has reintroduced a full-foot version of Jets, dubbed the "Süper Jet", complete with the additional heel straps the original Beuchat full-foots had:

http://www.avmarin.com/SUPER-JET-DALGIC-PALETI-pid-38.html

I believe these may be the only full-foot fins with heelstraps still in production anywhere in the world.

 

[Nemrod]

Why do they keep putting the slot curve in the fin backwards. A wing should be positive camber on the lift side and yet the Turkish fins above and the Rocket fin have the under cambered side to the front, direction of movement, it should be just the opposite.

Those Turkish Super Jets look like a cross between a Jet and a Rocket, like a horse and a donkey gets you a mule or some such.

I realize the common misconception that an airplane wing produces lift because it "sucks" upward by producing a vacuum on the top side, however, this is not really the case, a wing produces lift by directing a mass of air downward equal to or greater than the weight of the aircraft. For every reaction there is an equal and opposite reaction. A fin works largely the same way, the water mass directed rearward is a force vector, the opposite vector is the diver moving forward in the direction opposite of the sum of the other vectors. A well designed fin should emulate a wing and should have the thrust face under cambered, not the front or lifting face. Rockets are backwards, maybe that is why they suck.

N

 

[John C. Ratliff]

Why do they keep putting the slot curve in the fin backwards. A wing should be positive camber on the lift side and yet the Turkish fins above and the Rocket fin have the under cambered side to the front, direction of movement, it should be just the opposite.

Those Turkish Super Jets look like a cross between a Jet and a Rocket, like a horse and a donkey gets you a mule or some such.

I realize the common misconception that an airplane wing produces lift because it "sucks" upward by producing a vacuum on the top side, however, this is not really the case, a wing produces lift by directing a mass of air downward equal to or greater than the weight of the aircraft. For every reaction there is an equal and opposite reaction. A fin works largely the same way, the water mass directed rearward is a force vector, the opposite vector is the diver moving forward in the direction opposite of the sum of the other vectors. A well designed fin should emulate a wing and should have the thrust face under cambered, not the front or lifting face. Rockets are backwards, maybe that is why they suck.

N

Nemrod,

There are two reasons for the difference you describe above:

1. To get around the Scubapro patent.

2. To relieve the drag of the water on the "dead area" on the up kick.

SeaRat

 

[Nemrod]

Nemrod,

There are two reasons for the difference you describe above:

1. To get around the Scubapro patent.

2. To relieve the drag of the water on the "dead area" on the up kick.

SeaRat

Yeah, yeah, my brain is upside down today. However, like I have said before, I have covered over the slots and there is no difference in repeated swim tests, sorry. I don't think tail fins on Buicks made them more stable in turns either and I don't think those slots do much of anything either.

N