waterway glide vs. leaderfins hyper

[Fondueset]

I didn't need to see that

[BennyB]

Andy you need to grow a tail to balance the weight of those cojones you're carrying around with you...

[laminar]

I want my mommy!

[ADR]

How about this then.....yet to be tested

[Kars]

Andy make sure you have a rounded gab edge, rounding the other two new edges may also be better to transfer force and waterflow. I'm looking forward to you report and video of your unique Split monofin!

The soft rubber slab over the holes and acros the V-gab may be the next improvement helping to tunnel the water into steady stream.

It would be nice if you would test the different configurations by swimming 50 and 100m's, having those filmed and take note of the differences, number of strokes, speed, tiredness, muscle use, style, efficiency etc.

It may turn out people will buy a fin and adapt it to have the v-fortex action Followed by the established manufactures

Love, peace and water, - you already seem to have plenty of courage!

Kars

[laminar]

Chen Bin monofin arrival date is March 22...only because of Chinese New Year.

[Mullins]

Hope you have flexible ankes Laminar - those videos you posted of people swimming with Chen Bin fins seem to indicate they're desperately in need of more angle. The fins look good otherwise though

[ADR]

Thanks Kars. This fin with the centre cut-out seems to want to collapse under load. By collapse I mean the two new inside corners of the cut-out try to come together effectively closing the gap and creating even more v-bend across the tail of the fin(the opposite of what I was expecting). I haven't yet got my head around what forces are in play to cause this. As a result it does not respond like a normal split fin.

The thing that really surprises me is how little any of these radical changes impact the performance of the fin. It makes me think that current monos are not all that high tech if you can make huge changes to them with only some impact to performance. I'm fairly sure that the impact to a Lunocet by changes like this would so dramatically change the fluid flow that you would feel a huge difference to the performance.

[jome]

I spoke with an experienced monofin swimmer last weekend and asked his opinnion about the v-bend.

He was of the opinnion that it has to do with how the monofin is laminated or layered.

The simplest designs are flat. Just even layers going from top to bottom, each segment a little thinner than the rest. Usually such blades are quite soft and also v-bend.

Then there are flat ones, but the middle of the blade has been sanded thinner, so it does the proper "spoon bend", but also breaks easily. These are very rare I'm told.

Then there are blades that have vertical support "fingers" laminated into them. The common one is the so called "7 finger" design (I'm translating very freely here). It bends pretty much flat, not spoon or v. The downside is that they are also usully harder to control (slipping sideways) and require a good technique and experienced swimmer.

So might I be wrong in guessing the v-bending ones are of the "flat" type?

Here's a silly doodle to illustrate

The type and strength of the wings will also affect how it bends, of course.

[chrismar]

The leaderfins hyper/hyper pros have the "finger support" but still show noticable v-bend. Not sure if they're worse than others, but clearly there's more to it than that.

[Kars]

You're right Chrismar.

If I look at the quastion, it's for me a matter of material and thicness. The difficulty with a monofin is that you want a certain type and degree of flexibility in one direction, and a rigid stifness in the other.

If I was to solve it I would make the upper part of the fin more rigid, by for instance glueing a plate (wing) on the back of the blade covering 2/3 or 3/4 of the width's blade.

Ok, gotta run!

Kars

[ADR]

monofins are made from bidirectional fibreglass cloth. Maybe making them from unidirectional cloth would solve this v fold problem as they could then be very stiff across the blade but soft from tip to tail

[laminar]

The video I posted of the chen bin shows (I think) no noticeable v-bend. I should get mine in the next week and I'll post a video.

Pete

[laminar]

Originally Posted by Mullins

Hope you have flexible ankes Laminar - those videos you posted of people swimming with Chen Bin fins seem to indicate they're desperately in need of more angle. The fins look good otherwise though

That's funny. I need more ANGLE!!!!!!!



My ankles should be fine... I did want an all around fin, not just one that excels horizontally. Hopefully, I'll be able to kick and glide with it.

Pete

[Mullins]

Hehe, ok so there's not too much wailing and gnashing of teeth going on. But I reckon they're probably just acting all stoical for the camera...

You can see what I mean in the videos though eh. The whole kick including the bottom of the stroke is taking place well above the line of the guy's body. A body angled downward (upward...?) while travelling forward is not terribly efficient.