OMS slipstream best fin for me?

[TONY CHANEY]

IMHO, they simply suck! I owned a pair and they were the worse fin I have ever used. Glad I was able to sell them. From my posting on The Deco Stop :

I went to the OMS Slipstreams. As for me, what a waste of money. The fins function real well but, the foot pocket is just too wide for me. (I am not alone in this..jus search postings on them). My buddy and I were at the point on keeping the inserts in them. I was also curling my toes in order to maintain the feeling that they would stay on and thus had a somewhat fear of being head down. The fear was self imposed but, felt like the air in my drysuit would rush to the feet and blow the boots off my feet. I had to take off the spring straps and put the orginal straps back on in order to creat a tighter fit. I bought a pair of Hollis F1's and after one dive I sold the Slipstreams. The F1's feel heavy out of the water but feel feather lite in the water. They also seem to hold well to the abuse that us cave divers can put them through. I think the best fins I have ever had. I let another diver try them out in Peanut cavern. He went out and got his own set afterward. OBTW, I have owned over 6 different fins, ScubaPro, Oceanic, OMS etc.​

 

[moody s]

IMHO, they simply suck! I owned a pair and they were the worse fin I have ever used.[/INDENT]

Agreed! Even if they were any good I wouldn't buy them as OMS has the worst customer service of any company I have ever encountered. I dive the Hollis F1 dry, the Diverite EXP wet. Look at the Mares Quattro Avanti if you are looking for a light fin, they might work, but in my experience when I started sidemount diving my feet were "heavy" and it had nothing to do with my fins, in my case I just didn't have enough arch in my back, it could also be a trim issue. Just my 2 cents of course.

 

[adimi24]

Agreed! Even if they were any good I wouldn't buy them as OMS has the worst customer service of any company I have ever encountered. I dive the Hollis F1 dry, the Diverite EXP wet. Look at the Mares Quattro Avanti if you are looking for a light fin, they might work, but in my experience when I started sidemount diving my feet were "heavy" and it had nothing to do with my fins, in my case I just didn't have enough arch in my back, it could also be a trim issue. Just my 2 cents of course.

That's what I'm trying to figure out and as I said in the OP that I know it's partially my fault but my fins were making it impossible for me to feel remotely comfortable in the water, either always feet way up with my Cressis or legs pulling me way down with Jet fins. Since you a bunch of you don't like the slipstreams I might go for the Dive RIte EXPs, although they weren't perfect, out of the 5 or so fins I tried they felt the best. Also, I have large feet and my size 12 5mm booties are probably making my foot up position even worse. The EXPs were a little buoyant for me, maybe I could change my booties ( they have thin rubber sole ), wouldn't one of those boots with a thick hard sole be more negative?

And I've already noticed that about OMS's serivce. There's no sizing charts and very little info about their fins and the two local dealers do not have any in stock and are being huge pains in the butt and acting like they don't want to order them for me, saying they have other stuff like jetfins instead...

I know cave adventurers has them and I am about to recieve a bunch of stuff from them but I wanted to try fins in person so I didn't order. Looks like I'll have to if I decide to get the slipstreams..and I won't have free shipping on this order

And for those that said they are too wide, that may be good for me, because at least with sneakers I can barely find anything that fits and generally need wide new balance shoes, .5 - 1 sizes up..

 

[Glenlivet]

Just as a datapoint: I'm currently diving my Hollis F1 (which I normally use for dry suit diving) with my 7mm wetsuit with 5mm booties and 5mm neoprene socks. The F1 are negative, but apparently less so than the Scubapro Jets, and the foot pocket is (at least for my feet ;-) ) quite generous, even a bit wide horizontally. I use size 45 (Europe) booties and my F1 are size XL.

I'm very happy with this combination

 

[bkbomb123]

I believe, unfortunately, that the Slipstreams have been discontinued. I can´t find them anywhere (Scubatoys, LeisurePro, Northeast Scuba, etc).

Bummer. I thought they were great and NOT heavy, which is a perfect combo for wetsuit diving.

Divers Supply, I just ordered a pair,

Oms Slipstream Fins (BLACK, XLG) Part #: OMS0001 Submit a Review	1	$85.50

Order Totals Summary

Subtotal:	$85.50
Tax:	$5.13
Shipping and Handling:	$10.29
Discounts:	$0.00
Total:	$90.63

Thanks again for shopping with Divers

 

[tracydr]

IMHO, they simply suck! I owned a pair and they were the worse fin I have ever used. Glad I was able to sell them. From my posting on The Deco Stop :

I went to the OMS Slipstreams. As for me, what a waste of money. The fins function real well but, the foot pocket is just too wide for me. (I am not alone in this..jus search postings on them). My buddy and I were at the point on keeping the inserts in them. I was also curling my toes in order to maintain the feeling that they would stay on and thus had a somewhat fear of being head down. The fear was self imposed but, felt like the air in my drysuit would rush to the feet and blow the boots off my feet. I had to take off the spring straps and put the orginal straps back on in order to creat a tighter fit. I bought a pair of Hollis F1's and after one dive I sold the Slipstreams. The F1's feel heavy out of the water but feel feather lite in the water. They also seem to hold well to the abuse that us cave divers can put them through. I think the best fins I have ever had. I let another diver try them out in Peanut cavern. He went out and got his own set afterward. OBTW, I have owned over 6 different fins, ScubaPro, Oceanic, OMS etc.​

Interesting that the Slipstreams were too wide for you. In my ( small size) they ran way too narrow. I've really not had any fins run too narrow before, my biggest problem is usually just finding a foot pocket small enough that it doesn't try to swallow up my ankle.
i ended up buying a no-name F1 substitute the that I love with my dry boots,although I haven't found anything for diving wet,yet. For some reason, these generics were the only fins that I could find that really fit me well, in the smaller dive shops that I was able to visit, anyway.
They fit better than any other paddle fin but there is no name on them, which drives me crazy.

 

[TONY CHANEY]

Tracy MD, what fins are you using? I am interested.

 

[Dsix36]

I started with Cressi frog fins and had no problems. Later I "split them myself into split fins and liked them even more. Next was a move to Rocket fins and not only were they heavy as bricks, they were too stiff so I bought Jet fins. Jets were not quite as heavy or a s stiff. I needed lighter fins and went with Dive Rite and had great success, but they were slightly long. I got Slipsteams next and am still using them. They are the same buoyancy as Dive Rite and just a bit shorter. they work for all fin kicks. They did cause some real calve pain for the first few dives until I got used to them.

Spring straps on all of them. I adjust my wetsuit boots to use the same fin for wetsuit and drysuit.