Best fins for long surface swims

[pvb]

Hello,

I am doing a island-to-island race in a few weeks and am looking for a good pair of fins for the 20+ swimming sections. It must be open heel fins since I want to wear my running shoes in the fins (this will save a lot of time on the 40+ transitions.

So far I have tried both the Force Fins as well as a pair of Seawing Nova from Scubapro (http://shop.alphadiving.dk/seawing_nova-p-840.html). Both of these fins seem much too stiff for these long swims (total of 7 miles).

I have also tried a cheap ($20) pair of snorkel fins (not open heel) and these perform far better than the above. It seems that I need something like the cheap snorkel fins, but with an open heel design.

Any suggestions?

Peter

 

[black1]

Riffe makes an open heal long blade fin thats plastic and works real well, this way it can take abuse on rocks and all.

RIFFE INTERNATIONAL / Fins

 

[alexrom1207]

The riffe's are a heavy fin (the "silent hunter") and may not be good for what you want to use it for. The cressi 3000LD is a good fin for that use but it doesn't come in open heel.

Just to point something out. With an open heel fin you are going to lose a decent amount of energy over the 7 mile track. You may end up saving more time by using the closed heel fins and taking the time to change your shoes.

Other option is to look at the omer ice fins. The omer footpocket is big enough that if you went up a size on the footpocket, you may be able to get away with shoving your shoe into it (so long as it's not too big a shoe). Obviously you'd have to check this out before you bought the fin. But this wouldn't be an option with the cressis because their footpocket is much much smaller.