I thought I'd start a new thread to share the findings of some recent research I conducted into the history of the monofin. The investigation was prompted by the dearth of online information I discovered about the origins of the device other than terse references to certain Soviet athletes beating bi-fin competitors in finswimming races around 1973. This poverty of coverage convinced me that there must be much more to the history of the monofin than the sudden entry of a monofin-shod individual or team at a finswimming competition in the early 1970s.
The first thing I did was to try and identify what might have been the world's first monofin-like device. I resisted the temptation either to trace the monofin back to some fantasy drawing by the likes of Leonardo da Vinci, or to speculate about which sea creature's tail fin might have the closest resemblance to a monofin, or to attribute its inspiration to Hans Christian Andersen's Little Mermaid.
A lot of intensive searching and a dollop of good fortune yielded results. A potential candidate for the "world's first monofin" was found in the shape of a German museum exhibit created in 1949:
These images can be found on page 60 of a 2015 issue of the online German diving history journal Tauchhistorie at http://www.tauchhistorie.eu/th-pdf/tauchhistorie-03-2015.pdf. The pictures appear in an article by Kurt Schaefer entitled "Meine Geschichte - Kurt Schaefer" (My story: Kurt Schaefer). If you can't read German, you can still find out plenty about him at http://www.isdhf.com/eventsoffers/scubadivinghalloffame/bios/kurt_schaefer.aspx, including his association with Hans Hass and his contribution to the development of underwater photography.
The "Meine Geschichte" article is essential, however, to an understanding of Schaefer's role in the origins of the monofin. Kurt Schaefer fastened together a pair of homemade swimming fins with straps and cords to create what is probably the world’s first monofin. The finished result appears in the third image. The second image shows the piece of material used to join the separate fins together with cords and straps. In the first image, the fins are entirely separate and usable as bi-fins, although they can still be loosely aligned when worn to perform a butterfly stroke.
Schaefer's late-1940s monofin is on display in the Aquazoo-Löbbecke Museum in the German city of Düsseldorf. In my next posting, I'll tell you all about a later event in the early timeline of the monofin. Our focus will shift to a certain German patent filed and granted in the mid- to late-1950s. Stay tuned!
The first thing I did was to try and identify what might have been the world's first monofin-like device. I resisted the temptation either to trace the monofin back to some fantasy drawing by the likes of Leonardo da Vinci, or to speculate about which sea creature's tail fin might have the closest resemblance to a monofin, or to attribute its inspiration to Hans Christian Andersen's Little Mermaid.
A lot of intensive searching and a dollop of good fortune yielded results. A potential candidate for the "world's first monofin" was found in the shape of a German museum exhibit created in 1949:
These images can be found on page 60 of a 2015 issue of the online German diving history journal Tauchhistorie at http://www.tauchhistorie.eu/th-pdf/tauchhistorie-03-2015.pdf. The pictures appear in an article by Kurt Schaefer entitled "Meine Geschichte - Kurt Schaefer" (My story: Kurt Schaefer). If you can't read German, you can still find out plenty about him at http://www.isdhf.com/eventsoffers/scubadivinghalloffame/bios/kurt_schaefer.aspx, including his association with Hans Hass and his contribution to the development of underwater photography.
The "Meine Geschichte" article is essential, however, to an understanding of Schaefer's role in the origins of the monofin. Kurt Schaefer fastened together a pair of homemade swimming fins with straps and cords to create what is probably the world’s first monofin. The finished result appears in the third image. The second image shows the piece of material used to join the separate fins together with cords and straps. In the first image, the fins are entirely separate and usable as bi-fins, although they can still be loosely aligned when worn to perform a butterfly stroke.
Schaefer's late-1940s monofin is on display in the Aquazoo-Löbbecke Museum in the German city of Düsseldorf. In my next posting, I'll tell you all about a later event in the early timeline of the monofin. Our focus will shift to a certain German patent filed and granted in the mid- to late-1950s. Stay tuned!