That is a good point, it's not without flaws either. We came out with the Tuna Ice fins for example in 1999 that were completely clear that hid everything but your feet in the water. They were awesome theoretically and aesthetically but then the project turned into a disaster since the material was very unstable and unpredictable and too sensitive to temperature changes. Who the heck would have known after 100's of prototypes were fine? Omer was however the first manufacturer to market a carbon fiber speargun, a camouflage wetsuit, and carbon fiber fins (C4 was the supplier for them) more than ten years ago. And even the first versions of those had much room for improvement as witnessed by all the models on the market today. Constructive criticism is always accepted
"Have you met Alberto March and Marco Bardi? How do they compare to the US spearos? Is the OMER 18 circular rubber going to be sold in bulk as well?"
Shane, I met a lot of those guys at the European Championships in Sardinia in 1999. I'm originally from Sardinia too so it was cool to chat with them when I was there because I speak Italian. Alberto March is very nice and soft spoken, a professional fisherman. Marco Bardi is Mr. technical and really has a wealth of technical spearfishing knowledge in his brain. Some of the stuff he has figured out about speargun balancing is very interesting. Most of them are very humble. I fear March will never be the same diver he was competitively because after getting the bends freediving three times (in Tahiti he was fishing as deep as 150ft) he's too susceptible to it now and can't push it too hard anymore.
I think that compared to the European Champions our guys really hold their own. The main differences as I see them are that the style and type of spearfishing competitions Europeans are used to which is adopted on the Internation level by CMAS are modeled after the prefered type of diving of the Europeans, so it really favors them naturally therefore they have a huge edge.
Whereas a top level American diver for example might not care about going out and shooting a stringer full of 500 gram sargos for fun a European diver would and this is what they grow used to so in competition its almost natural for them and they have a big advantage over Americans. Most of the best divers here unless they are commercial fisherman go out looking for quality instead of quantity like one big grouper or two (Florida), a white sea bass (California), an ulua or a Mu(Hawaii) which I think is much more rewarding personally. You'd be hard pressed to see an American diver doing aspetto at 25 meters for a one kilo dentex or sargo here. They'd rather go after a wahoo or a 20lb grouper. I think the best divers in this country are Hawaiians these days, very good conditions-clear water, deep, smart elusive fish.
So I think head to head in Competition the European divers are better because of this advantage although competitions are changing all over Europe these days and I don't see a huge future in it if they keep going the way they're going.
Mark