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Extreme Dolfinism

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
It can take a long time to get an up-to-date response or contact with relevant users.
Sorry for the long silence. I have been at work although not in "complete isolation". The lunocet is scheduled for a tour of Europe next month. I am meeting with several world record holding finswimmers for detailed evaluation of the current design. Many miles of hydrotouring, 5 more prototypes, and six very expensive molds later, I am finally happy to say we're there!

Here is what a customer recently wrote:


Dear Ted,
The shoes arrived Wednesday, I put the fins together Thursday & I played sick and went diving today(Friday)!
I cannot express how blown away I am by your fins! I am 57. My father taught me to freedive when I was 5 and
it is not an exaggeration to say that I am way more at home in the water than I am on land. I have dozens of
different fins and have been using the large Finis monofin for over 15 years. I can dive to 120-130 feet but your
fin just changed my life! I only spent 3 hours or so in the water this morning. I only made shallow dives of 80 ft or so
but what a difference! I didn't really challenge myself because I haven't really done much diving the last 8 months-
mostly because I wanted to wait for your fin! The first thing that really impressed me was the CONTROL! It took me
a long time to learn to get the precision with my Finis that I have with my other freediving fins. Your fins respond to
the merest flick and gave me instant, precise control! AWESOME!! As I spent more time in the water I became aware
of something else. With a big monofin you have to use your whole body and continually thrust yourself forward. This
can be very exhausting until you get used to it. The Lunocet is a precise instrument; rather than a whole body thrust,
it's like you send pulses of energy down your body to your tail. This is WAY less demanding and requires a total different
mind set. When you get into it, it is far more natural and not as tiring. I used the 'strong' spring and don't think I'll ever have
to switch even when I start back in on my customary 6-8 hour dives. The whole thing is so fluid and natural-it's off the hook!
The comfort and naturalness are truly remarkable. Finis have to be REALLY tight, which is also energy draining, but because
of the cycling shoes there is none of that with the Lunocet. They are so comfortable it does really feel like you've grown a
fin! Since I live in Hawaii, when I dive from shore I usually go into the water from cliffs or rocky areas which usually demands
you jump in and put your equipment on in the water. At first I was somewhat skeptical of how this would work with the Lunocet
but when I got to the shore I realized I was freaking about nothing! I just jumped in from about 15 feet and your fins went on
far easier than my old monofins! Another realization struck me in the water...your fins will be TOTALLY useful for spearfishing.
Because traditional monofins require so much whole body effort I usually switch to normal long freediving fins when I want to
go hunting. Lunocets are so sensitive and precise I know I will never have to switch again. I hope you 'get' how insanely STOKED
I am! I felt like I got ZAPPED by Jesus in the water! I used to work with Buckminster Fuller and even knew Frank Lloyd Wright,
I know with total certainty that Bucky would have enjoyed spending hours talking shop with you. Your design skills are really
remarkable. While it has been a long year I have come to know you a little and am truly deeply impressed with what you've
accomplished. I hope your submarine project is as off the hook as your other endeavors!
Your Friend,
Scott Boxold
ps-I saw you added a Blog to your website. If you want to use any or all of this letter as a testimonial, I would be very
pleased and honored. I am a born again Lunocetarian!
pss-Today was actually my Birthday, how cool is that!? Thanks for the awesome gift!
 
Not yet buddy... I'm working on it though. We've been selling quite a few lately so I imagine there will be some youtube ones up soon as well. I am planning to bring my camera and housing with me to Austria and Italy next month... I'll be sure to get some great underwater video of the best finswimmers in the world!

Hope you're doing well... we just had a new baby... that's girl number four!
 
BTW Revan... nice work! and sorry for hijacking your thread. I will certainly be a customer soon!
 
Ted, if you are in Austria in May, then there are a few freediving competitions in the neighborhood in that time - for example the Czech Championship, South German Champ, some Italian competitions, etc. It would be lovely if we could test the device. Personally, I'll be at the Czech Championship in Zlin on 28th/29th May. If you are interested, have a look at the competition calender at APNEA.cz - Freediving and Apnea Resources (on the left side of the page)
 
Scott's testamonial reminds me of something. When I was using the 015 luno it felt best to me with a very small amp/high frequency kick. What I wanted was for it to be out further from my feet - with less drag and less buoyancy - but the thrust was nice with just a ripple down through the body - provided the blade was tightened all the way down. I expect just moving it out from the feet may have mitigated a lot of the drag in at least two different ways that I can think of.

I did it with good streamlining - but the pulse can also work during u/w photography and speafishing; situations that require finessed movements without having to load up the whole body. If I understand it right - it can also be done with a normal mono however.
 
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Hi Trux,

I would definitely like to hand deliver a lunocet to you... it's been a long time coming buddy.

I will be visiting with Gerhard Hoffmann of the Austrian diving club, TCWW in Wels... In addition to evaluating the lunocet for speed, Gerhard is wanting to use it for an activity I am very interested in, aqua-orienteering. In his own words:

Dear Mr.Ciamillo,

We are an Austrian diving club in Europe using monofins to swim championships in underwater orienteering.
You can find some you tube videos showing these championships.
I myself am the developer of fabricating the underwater tube and compasses in our club to have as low friction in the
water as possible. In this tube the air for breathing is also integrated and the compass for orienteering is mounted below the tube on a kind of fin where the distance measurement and also the swimming
deepness can be seen while swimming. There is one video on you tube called "Staatsmeisterschaft Orientierungstauchen 2009", where you
can see our latest equipment.
What I am always concerned about is the fact that the monofins are quick, but the legs are squeezed in these fins, and swimming distances of
800 meters are quite a pain. It seems that this problem does not exist in your lunocet fins, using shoes seems to be much better, and the performance on the videos I have seen
looks very fascinating!
Do you have any data if your fin is the same or faster than a mono-fin?
We are quite interested in trying out your fins to swim with them on International championships, is there any possibility?

Best regards
Gerhard Hoffmann
Technical manager TCWW
Tauchclub Wassermann Wels
 
A quick post from Kona:

On Sunday I set a new PB of 45 meters in constant weight freediving with the DOL-Fin Orca. That is 50% better than my previous PB of 30 meters before these sea trials. I also found my Failure Depth for the first time.:head

I made a 100 meter dynamic with it yesterday, although I really did not spend much time working on that. I did a grand total of two swims with it in the pool yesterday, but even with this limited practice, I still made it 20 meters further than my previous PB of 80 meters.

The learning continues. :)

Ron
 
Thats about where you have to get good at equalizing :) You are making really good progress!
 
Well, I’m back from Kona; and WOW, what a trip!

I had intended to test the DOL-Fin Orca in the open water and get AIDA 3 Star trained while I was there, as I have never hade any formal freedive training. The Orca was working great and I was doing well with my skills in the class. Thinking that I would have a better idea of what was involved in a competition if I participated rather than just observing from the sidelines, I entered the Freedive Paradise Competition (Freedive Paradise). I also thought that it would be good for adding credibility to any performance claims I made if they were backed by AIDA.

As fate would have it, I ended up earning second position for the US men’s team. It looks like I may have to carve out about a month to get in some more training and to compete in the World Cup in Okinawa.

Here are some pictures of the DOL-Fin Orca in open water.

Ron
 

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RESPECT! congrats on making the team! great advertising for the fin both in this comp and particualarly at the world champs.... is this fin legal for AIDA though? for some reason i recall that a fin could not have any "moving parts" articulations etc....

i may be wrong though... i hope so i really like the look of the fin.

impressive performances for a comp (any comp let alone your first!)

keep up the good work and research!

DD
 
... is this fin legal for AIDA though? for some reason i recall that a fin could not have any "moving parts" articulations etc....
That's the case under CMAS / FFESSM / FIPSAS rules, or for finswimming, but AFAIK there are no such limitations under AIDA.

Congrats, Ron! Good job!
 
is this fin legal for AIDA though? for some reason i recall that a fin could not have any "moving parts" articulations etc....DD

Although the DOL-Fin Orca is very different hydro-dynamically, from a mechanical perspective, it really is not much different from other monofins. The DOL-Fin does not have any pin-in-socket style hinges. The fin suspension system is an elastic device. It’s just not linear-elastic as is typical for fin blades.

Plus, since it was allowed in the Freedive Paradise competition, there is already a precedent for using it in AIDA freediving competitions. The World Cup should be no different. :)
 
Very logical and straight-ahead approach to getting the Dol-fin to be taken seriously.
 
I really wanted to make a good performance for dynamic, because I thought that would be the best indicator that the DOL-Fin Orca was an efficient monofin and a good contender for competition use. The truth is that I made a bunch of rookie mistakes. The first was that I messed up the schedule. I thought my Official-Top was at 11:20, but it was actually at 11:10. Five minutes prior to my OT I had just started getting into my suit, and I was running around getting my gear together instead of breathing up and getting ready for my performance. I finally got into the water and started my breath-up (without even getting in one lap of swimming practice) at three minutes to OT.

My second mistake was not surveying the pool before the competition. From discussions, I thought there was going to be a plate hung from the bulkhead that we would turn against. There was not. When I expected to feel the wall and make my turn, I ended up swimming right under the bulkhead and into the next pool. It looks like I overshot my first turn by about a full body length before I realized my mistake and managed to stop. In spite of all these mistakes, I managed to pull off an official 136 meter PB, on what was only my third dynamic practice/attempt with this fin. Unofficially, I like to think it was actually 140 meters if you include the extra 2 x 2 meters in the turn.

Here is a link to a video on the Facebook - Freedive Paradise page, which shows my dynamic performance on April 25th, 2010: [ame="http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150180199035441&oid=202518020111"]Login | Facebook[/ame]

Cheers,
Ron
 
Nice swim. Good way to introduce the fin all right, just start competing with it.
 
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The day before the comp started, I got in a little practice doing line starts with a lanyard. I had never used one and thought it wise to try one before the official CWT. Loren was nice enough to video some of my starts so I could study them later that evening. This is one he shot from underwater.
 
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I thought I’d mention that I have updated my Smith Aerospace - Home pages with new content regarding the DOL-Fin Orca. There are new pictures and video in the Gallery section. For those of you who can’t view Windows Media Player content, the videos are also on YouTube. Just follow the link in the video section. The latest video on sea-hiking with the DOL-Fin Orca is embedded here for convenience.

ALOHA,
Ron

Sea-Hiking and experiencing the natural underwater realm at Hawaii's Honaunau Bay as mer-human with the DOL-Fin Orca. The DOL-Fin HP also makes a brief appearance.

PS – In case anyone wants to get a hold of me regarding the DOL-Fin, please note the scheduled temporary shutdown from June 10 – July 13 documented on Smith Aerospace - Calendar of Events
 
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