Fin for surface swimming?

[Volker Hetzer]

Hi everyone!
This is my first posting here and probably wrong too, but after googling for hours I couldn't find a better forum and a lot of links about fins pointed to here.

So, my problem is this:
I'm planning to swim to work and my workplace is on a little river, between one and two miles downstream.
Therefore getting to work is the easy bit, the difficult one is getting back in the evening. I've used bi-fins as a kid and still feel compfortable in them when snorkeling but my fun-fins will likely not carry me upstream all the way.
Also I'm not too much into energy-conservation (getting lots of exercise is the other main goal), for me raw speed and maneuverability on the surface are the things I'm looking for. I plan to swim to work five days per week, so I think I'll get a lot of training. In the beginning, it's totally ok for me to leave the river part way up and walk the rest because the water speed increases upstream.

Now I'm a bit undecided on whether to spend my money on a pair of those extra-long bi-fins or on a monofin and learn how to use it and I am looking for some input for making the decision.

What do you think?

• Monofins: Do they have a noticeable (>10%) speed advantage on the surface? If yes, is it the fin or the stroke, i.e. can I achieve the same advantage by learning the dolphin stroke with bi-fins?
• Bi-fins: Swimming on the stomach, back or wide-stroke on the side? (For speed)
  
• How do both fin types compare regarding maneuverability?

Also, if this is entirely the wrong forum, maybe you could recommend a better suited one?

Lots of Greetings!
Volker

 

[MAKO Spearguns]

Swimming to work .. sounds pretty cool. Are you going to carry your lunch?

Bi-fins will give you more mobility and might be better suited for the turbulent water. In addition, A monofin might be quite strenuous for such a long swim if you are not acclimated to the use of it. I'm running a sale this month on fibeglass bifins if you decide to go that route.

I'm sure you will get some excellent advice from other members!

 

[DRW]

Hi, Volker!

What a great idea, finswimming to work. Reminds me of Geoffrey Fraser Dutton's book Swimming Free: On and Below the Surface of Lake, River and Sea, published in 1972 by Heinemann in London. I own a first edition:

It's an excellent read, not least because it serves as a reminder that with mask, snorkel, fins and suit it's perfectly possible to swim far across open waters as well as plunging deep beneath them. Or better still, in his own words:

What can we do with ourselves-what is there to do-once we have learnt to swim? I hope to answer this question in the following pages. I hope to show that there exists for every swimmer a new and unsuspected world-not thousands of miles away or hugely expensive but here under his nose in river, lake, sea, even in pond and ditch and flooded meadow, available now with the simplest of equipment. You no longer have to brave frigid waters-warm rubber suits are for all; with fins and mask and snorkel you enjoy a confidence and freedom of the water never before offered to Man. You merely need to have learnt to swim-well. Then you can begin to look around you, at your new inheritance. I offer in these pages a personal solution-but it applies to everyone who longs to explore aquatic worlds more imaginative than s weimming pool, and more accessible than the Red Sea; and who wishes simply to swim, and not be burdened with expensive specialized apparatus. It should whet the appetite of those who are not yet competent swimmers, and refresh those who are happy just to be beside loch, river or sea-everyone, surely, who finds adventure in our despoiled terrestrial environment becomes ever less satisfying and ever more mechanical. Here is simplicity and freedom, uncontaminated, unsuspected.

How can I, or anyone else, resist? I can relate to this simplicity, because as often as I can I head off to the coast, 8 miles away, to snorkel in the North Sea in my vintage-style fins, mask, snorkel and drysuit, all new but a close copy of what the skin diving pioneers of the 1950s wore when exploring their own home waters, whether the Mediterranean, the Southern California Pacific or the Great Lakes of the Upper Midwest. And now you appear to be following in Dutton's footsteps. You have indeed come to the right place to discuss your dilemma and if you still don't think you have, you might also try a finswimming forum where there are open-water practitioners. As for choice of fins, I work by the principle that fins are worn for power, manoeuvrability and endurance. For long-distance swimming, endurance is the main criterion and I would add the necessity of a comfortable fit to avoid ending up with sore feet that will spoil your day at work. The old-school rubber fins I wear in the sea won't beat the speed record but they have the virtue of being so comfortable that I almost forget I am wearing them, so whatever you do, pick a pair that don't pinch the toes or the sides of the feet, which isn't always easy as long-bladed freediving fins often come with rather narrow foot pockets.

Schönes Wochenende noch...

 

[Volker Hetzer]

Swimming to work .. sounds pretty cool. Are you going to carry your lunch?

Naa, we've got a kitchen there. So it's just clothing and I put this into one of those waterproof roll-up bags: https://www.ortlieb.com/wp-content/themes/ortlieb-theme/img/art-large/k4453.jpg, with a bit of rope for dragging along behind me.

Bi-fins will give you more mobility and might be better suited for the turbulent water. In addition, A monofin might be quite strenuous for such a long swim if you are not acclimated to the use of it.

Sounds reasonable. So I'll go with bi-fins for now and practice a bit of dolphin stroke while on the way. In a year or so I'll see what shape I'm in and whether a change would work for me.