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Cracking fin(s) at depth...

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
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Okke

New Member
Oct 23, 2001
20
0
0
49
Hi Freedivers!

Ok so i heard about stories of cracking fins. But what to do if your fin(s) crack at let's say 30 meter? Praying for a mermaid or dolphin to rescue you? If diving with a buddy, he will not be capable of pulling you up...i guess? So does anyone have experienced this? And what fins are crackless?

:kingkke
 
When it happened to me I was only at 20 meters. I just swam back up. There was quite a noticable difference between my two legs- one good fin and one bad. One of my fins just kind of flopped there on the way up.
I ususaly do most of my freediving on the wrecks of the great lakes. Many times I have a mooring line to follow up and down. If I were to break a fin I could pull myslef up- it's actually easier than constant ballast.
The rest of the time I freedive wrecks with my scooter. I can cover an amazing amount of distance and recover lots of lost gear quickly- I work on a charter boat also. It is a lot easier for me to zip down and get that lost fin or belt than a tank diver. When I dive like this I carry a spare-air in case my scooter floods or the battery dies.
My Picasso BT fins have been very loyal to me. They have nicks in them, but no cracks. I have owned them for many years without any problems. I use them for both freediving and scuba.
I splurged this summer and bought the Sporasub pure carbons. They broke after about three days. They were wonderful fins, you could really feel the snap without the effort, but I had no idea just how fragile they really were.
I hope this helps.
Jon
 
I like the scooter part!;) But still i think it will take a while before i can afford it...:waterwork. So when buying new fins the Sporasub pure carbon are not recommended? I still have the old Cressi Rondine Gara, but i'm thinking of getting new ones. During the championship in Ibiza i saw a lot of Falcon C4 fins i'd like to try these once but still i'm gathering information. So what should i buy?

P.S. How deep can you go with the scooter? What is your max. depth?

:kingkke
 
My max is the same that I have done on a constant- 105'.
I haven't tried to push it deeper because of the nature of the deeper water around here- no vis and lots of lines in the water. I use it only when I can see what I am about to run into.
I know that Kirk has taken his to 250' +. He was the one who originally gave me the idea about the spare-air. He told me about it at a DEMA show a few years ago.
I know that he has also gotten bent on his scooter while freediving. That's another reason why I don't push the depth with it. I use it to cover large distances.
Jon
 
Hi Jon thanks for helping me out :eek: !

Did you ever had to use your spare-air? And is it safe to use?
How do you deal with decompression?

:confused:kke
 
I have never had to use it. If I did I would go into scuba mode. That means a very slow ascent and no more freediving below 10' for the rest of the day.
That might not work for everyone, but it is my bailout plan. I have no intrest in pushing things too far.
Jon
 
The Sporasub Pure's broke, again, for the last time. I was just in the pool doing some dynamic and noticed that one fin was much softer than the other. I took it off to look at it and noticed that there was a nice crack all along the bend in the blade where it attaches to the foot pocket.

Dive Inn won't replace it, like they did last time, since I bought them a while ago. I still have one nice carbon-fiber blade if anyone wants to swap for a pair of plastic ones.;)

Jon
 
Not long ago, bifins were dominated by M-Technic and C4. But, the days of carbon bifins are waning.... With waterway's blades, there is no longer any advantage to using carbon. The waterway blades are just as powerful & efficient, and far more durable.

You can buy the waterway bifins from waterway with weird mono-fin style footpockets -- or you can buy 'Matrix' fins with the waterway blades and sporasub pockets, or you can buy just the blades from waterway and get the sporasub pockets from diveinn.

Either way, you get the best of both worlds; low cost, high efficiency, high durability.


Eric Fattah
BC, Canada
 
I've already got a couple pairs of C4's and, now, a bunch of sporasub pockets.

Straight blades might be fine for up and down, but I like an angle to my blade for surface swimming.

Jon
 
Jon, I missplaced your e-mail but wanted to ask you if you use a compass on your Apollo. Last year when the Suunto compass finally arrived, I only had a couple of days left to try to figure out a place to attach it. I had problems with the magnetic field of the motor interfering with the compass. What location have you found to be less of an influence on a compass? Also, I want to get a third battery cable, and was hoping you could tell me where you get your parts. BTW, The spare-air holster worked great last year. I cut off the top flap cover, and the neoprene had enough "squeeze" to hold the bottle in any position.

Thanks again,

Jim
 
I found a rubber comapss mount from an old Dacor console and strapped it onto the front handle of my scooter with a velcro watch strap. I have never had a problem with it reading. Any rubber strapped compass would allow you to do the same thing very easily.

Some of my dive buddies have scooters with handles in the back, like the Aeris and the Gavins. They took a rubber compass mount and zip-tied them onto the propeller shroud and haven't had any problems at all.

If you find a place to get the battery cables let me know! I had two batteries, and just bought two new ones since my old ones were about 6 years old and in need of replacement. I just transfered the cables over, but I have kept the two old batteries in case I find a place to buy the cables- which would give my FOUR batteries to use!:D

Glad the holster worked for you. I havne't had my scooter out in a while since the winds are so strong we keep getting blown off of Lake Michigan. In the Inland lakes I don't normally use them, and haven't let Ted try it out yet since he needs to save up for a wedding and once he tried one everything would be put on hold until he bought his own. ;)

Jon
 
Last edited:
Eric,
I didn't realize that waterway's bi-fin blades were that good. We've got a rep right here in Toronto, and he came out to a pool practice recently and we all tried the waterway mono's. I also didn't know that they make blades that fit into standard footpockets, I thought they only had premounted ones with the mono style pockets. If they fit into sporasub pockets, they'd probably fit into my OMER ones too. I'll check them out, I'm planning on buying a waterway mono anyway... someday when I save up some more money! Gotta get a D3 first...

Thanks,
Aaron
 
@flyboy748

Actualy, the WW blades fit the Omer pockets better than they do the Sporasub pockets.

The little "nibs" at the end of the Sporasub side-rails interfere with the mounting. Unirdna came up with a way to fix this neatly by basically making the channel run all the way up the side-rails (like O.ME.R pockets). I resorted to a less "involved" approach of hacking an inch off the Sporasub side-rails with a pair of tin-snips. Looks like hell, but anyone who notices is scrutinizing me too closely anyway.

As far as surface swimming is concerned, the fiber blades definitey have a curvature, with the "shiny" side being concave. My LD mono and both of the WW #4's have this characteristic. Flipping the blade such that the scalped side faces the soles of your feet alows the curvature to mimic an angled blade and gives a noticeable improvement in surface swimming characteristics. For example, the WW #4s mounted this way compare favorably w/ O.ME.R Millenniums for surface swimming.
 
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