PADI Divemaster 800m snorkel

[paddydiver]

Freediving fins or at least a good pair of full foot fins along the lines of cressi frogs. Don't try doing it with arms in front of your head. If you're not used to swimming like this it will tire you out, it will also likely interfere with your snorkel. Use a simple snorkel tube. No purge or splash guard or other faff, going at speed the mouth purge can let in water and you won't be in waves so why add resistance with a splash guard.

Apart from this it's just practice, go fin swim wherever or whenever you can to build up the leg endurance. Unless you have done swim training UW turns etc will be tricky so it's kind of pointless to try and master them for this. Also it's up to the Instructor, if they're being by the book you shouldn't really be pushing off, as the others said it defeats the point of the exercise. Swim hard as you can and catch your breath on the turns.

Finally, don't worry about it too much. It's not that difficult to get the 21 mins.

 

[Landau]

Also, you can keep your arms at your sides and flap your hands. You'd be surprised how much that can propel you.

In a good streamlined position with a good kick that will just slow you down and waste effort. The hands are very inefficient compared to the fins.

If it actually speeds you up, you need to work on your kick technique or possibly fin choice.

For the same reasons why we don't want our students sculling.

 

[lowwall]

Freediving fins or at least a good pair of full foot fins along the lines of cressi frogs.

Excellent point. If you can get a pair that fits, full foot fins are noticeably faster than bootie fins. I've tested a bunch of standard fins and Mares Superchannel full foots were several seconds a lap faster at both medium perceived effort and max effort. Back when Rodale's Scuba did instrumented tests of fins, the full foot versions were always faster.

I haven't tried them, but the Seawing Nova full foot or freediving fins should blow everything else out of the water. It's borderline cheating though unless it's something you'd actually use when guiding or assisting.

A monofin would be the ultimate, but they shouldn't allow it.

 

[dmaziuk]

 

[BoundForElsewhere]

In a good streamlined position with a good kick that will just slow you down and waste effort. The hands are very inefficient compared to the fins.

If it actually speeds you up, you need to work on your kick technique or possibly fin choice.

For the same reasons why we don't want our students sculling.

Hmmm

 

[AsherN]

I just looked at the short course (25m pool) versus long course (50m pool) distance swimming records and it appears the advantage is about .5 second per turn or 8 seconds faster over 800 meters for the shorter pools. Not really worth adjusting for IMO.

Although they probably should give you extra time for true open water swims, both for the approximately 16 second disadvantage for not being able to do push offs plus the difficulty of maintaining a straight line.

but those times are from swimmers who know how to execute a perfect turn. Most people don't. And turning and pushing with fines is quite different.

 

[AsherN]

Just to add to what Tursiops wrote, if a DM on a boat spies someone needing assistance in the distance, he or she is supposed to don fins, mask, and snorkel quickly, jump in the water, and get there as fast as possible. This exercise demonstrates the ability to do that.

If that is the intent, then it's the wrong swim technique. As a lifeguard, oh so long ago, the rescue swim was freestyle, head out of the water so you could keep visual contact with the victim.

 

[loosenit2]

i've done the 800m snorkel swim in a 25m pool several times. IMO the issue is not the snorkel, that is not a big factor, but rather fins in the turns. The turns caused my fin straps to come off several times and I had to reach back and put the strap back on, that combined with loosing time and momentum in the turn caused a huge slowdown. The result of doing a turn without a flip or kick off is the loss of a lot of speed. In fact my swim tests I had to do a 400m freestyle swim and the 800m snorkel swim and my freestyle swim was considerably faster per lap than the snorkel swim because of the fins interfering with my ability to do turns. I'm not sure how everyone in this thread is saying kick off the wall with fins on, that is a very impractical thing to do, you would have to get your foot flat against the wall, where normally you kick off with the balls of your feet, which is not possible with fins on.

I would much rather do a snorkel swim in open water with no turns to bog me down.

 

[dmaziuk]

Yes, you'd want full-foot fins because open heel ones do want to come off in the push. You also want them not angled so they don't slap on top of the water and don't get in the way so much when you push off.

 

[tursiops]

If that is the intent, then it's the wrong swim technique. As a lifeguard, oh so long ago, the rescue swim was freestyle, head out of the water so you could keep visual contact with the victim.

You can look forward just fine with a mask on. The lifeguard rescue swim does not use fins...so the arms become important.