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Monofin Purchase advice

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.
Well the carbon glide is excellent - the blade behaves quite differently to the fibreglass ones. Despite being very soft it's faster and flexes more towards the trailing edge. It's also noticeably lighter.

However the footpockets are - somehow - the wrong bloody size so I'm going to have to modify them in a big way. Frustrating because those on my #2 fin (also nominally 310mm) are near perfect.
 
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I'll keep that in mind - Starfins says carbon is available though it is generally too expensive for us scum.
 
Nirvanoje,

My 5 cents:

I can definitely recommend the Nemo Wing as a beginner fin. I went through the exact process this summer, and was considering the finis ones, and after getting some advice from the good people on this forum i decided to go for the waterway nemo wing medium stiffness. I am very content with the purchase. The fin has been very gentle on me as a beginner, and the more i get the hang of it the better it performs. The whole ordering/shipping process was also much easier than i had expected beforehand.

I got to see the finis-rapid this summer as well, as a friend had bought that. The problem is that the one size fits all construction they have does not really fit all, and i simply could not get it onto my feet (footsize 44-45). The construction of the plastic blade itself also cannot compare to the fiberglass of the nemo wing, and it seems much much softer and not balanced throughout the blade (from first glance).

Needless to say, it made me very content with my purchase.

Size-wise...my 44-45 size feet fits like a glove inside the nemo wing 46-48 stated size, and i think i can cram some 3mm inside socks inside if i want to as well.

(for good measure, i am not endorsed by waterway in any way )
 
I've owned a couple nemos as well - now on their second and third owners respectively. Another option would be something along the lines of the Starfins 'Simple' fin - I believe these will outperform the Nemo and have the advantage of custom sizing for around the same price. I've not had the opportunity to try one however, but my experience with Starfins has been extremely positive.
 
The Leaderfins would be comparable to the Waterway Nemo. It looks comparable also in that it has a nicely laminated blade.

I own a Tropol like the one on ebay. It differs from the Leaderfin in being a hyperfin type design - with power generated by the footpockets, which have special re-enforcements moulded into them, and a greater blade angle. I love it and have used it for a couple of years. Mine has a stiffer blade than my starfins and I like using it when the water gets cold and I go to a 5 mil suit. It is a heavy fin however, and may be difficult for a beginner. Very nice blade.
 

There are 6 DOL-Fin Orca's in service at the moment. There's the original two POP units that went to the 2010 WC in Okinawa, plus the production fins serial numbered 0001 through 0004. Natalia still has one of the original POP units. My understanding is that she likes using it for DYN, but I don't know what her plans are for competing with it in the future. The POP design was incomplete and had some parts held together with duct tape. It is possible the fin Natalia has is no longer in good enough shape for competing anymore. It was also not very optimized as it was my first pass at trimming the suspension system for controlling the hydrofoil, so its performance was not as good as it could have been.

The other POP unit was striped down after the WC and rebuilt as the test & development platform for the production version. This is the fin I currently use. All the other DOL-Fin Orcas are owned by AIDA ranking freedivers except for the one with the fancy iridescent paint scheme. These production units are very new to the freediving scene (most having been delivered within the last few of months). There will be a little lag while the owners become proficient at using the new technology, but I'm sure we will start to see them showing up at competitions over the course of the next year.

Eric Fattah was intending to be using his DOL-Fin Orca the the 2011 WC in Greece, but his schedule was derailed by the sales negotiations for his company and he had to cancel the trip.

Serial number 0005 is completed and available for sale at DOL-Fin Orca SN #0005 for sale $1500 (US) | Facebook

Ron
 
Very thanks for answers. Now i thinking to buy Nemo wing, but what size mono to choose? I wish to try them also in open water, i am living in Norway, so i use 5 mm socks. My foot size 42 . But mono i will use more for swiming pool trainings.
 
One of my friends owns one.

I´ve tested it in our pool and it is just amazing!

Normally I´m diving a leaderfins Hyper Extra Hard.
The Orca fels like 2 times more efficent than the Leaderfins Hyper!
Amazing this fin! It feels so easy and soft to kick but your speed is not slower as with the Hyper :blackeye .

BUT i found out that it is not really good for sprinters. If you wanna kick it fast and hard it feels like it´s blocking and you angles getting crooked a lot .
So in my opinion it is not good for people who are sprinting ( especially in CWT ).
BUT just mind blowing for Dynamic and slower swimmer in CWT.

I´m not kidding, it was the first fin where it felt like i could do a PB easily !
 
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Reactions: Kars
One would like to measure the energy expenditure difference between different fins, with the same rested, technically able freedivers swimming a 100m dynamic with each fin setup.
I think if the diver's exhale is caught, analysing the CO2 amount will show how much O2 is burned, indicating energy use.

I would like to see measured:

1) No fins
2) closed healed scuba bifins,
3) closed healed scuba bifins used in monofinstroke,
4) Freediving bifins,
5) Freediving bifins in monofinstyle,
6) Classic (zero angle) fiberglass fin,
7) Flyerfin,
8) Hyperfin,
9) Hyperfin carbon,
10) DOL-fin Orca.

How's that for a general freediving propulsion test?

I would love to hear of you people what you think the numbers may look like. The most efficient way is used as 100%, which one is the 100%? Which order and ratios have the others?

Love, Courage and Water,

Kars
 
It gets complicated trying to get a measure of the energy consumed. CO2 is retained in the blood as carbonic acid, so measuring what is in the exhaled breath is an incomplete measurement of the amount of energy used. I'm inclined to think that you could get a better reading with O2 measurements, but you would have to get a measurement in both the blood and in the lungs before and after the dive.

The best way would probably be to have a diver swimming at a constant speed with a respiration analysis machine measuring the O2 going in and out of the system during a period of sustained continuous swimming. Then the issue is how the drag of the hose feeding the diver air and returning it to the respiration analysis machine corrupts the measurement.
 
I would think another variable that could be hard to control for is differences in optimum technique for each fin. In other words, what is optimum technique with one fin is not necessarily the best technique with another fin. Each design seems to need a particular stroke style to get the most out of it. That would be quite a comparison though! Maybe a slightly different technique, such as pushing on either a stationary object or a high-drag object and comparing the total thrust possible? I remember reading about a researcher measuring dolphin performance by training them to push on a wall which had pressure transducers.
 
Re: Monofin Purchase advice Help me Fondueset your my only hope.

From the good reviews about the starfisn i like to order one.

I have a waterway glide bought some years ago so it is not the 30 deg footpocket i guess and i bought it as a finswimmer fin so the size i bought is
XL 44-45 310mm, I have footsize 42,5 european 265mm long foot.

What size should i have in Starfins so they make it right for me?

What footlenght do you other have and what size did you buy or are they all custom made sizes?
 
You have to contact Starfins directly for this. Sizing is done based on foot measures and, if you want, photographs of your feet. They have been very good for me and everyone I know - except Mullins who, I think, thought his blade was too hard.
 
Great, about the stifness i have the long distance now from waterway which think is 1 or 2 in thier scale.

Fondueset what stifness did you buy on the 3 starfins and what can you say bout them, what is thoose stifnesses called by starfins?
 
I have a #3 and it's too stiff for me to use. But then, I'm allergic to stiff fins. Come out in a terrible rash whenever I look at one.
 
I also like softer fins, i tried one finswimmer glide before it had harder blade and smaller footpocket and it was great but impossible to use for slow relxed swim, it was made for you to constantly kick it and the footpocket tight fit made it possible to wear for only like 10 minutes or so.
 
Here's what I did:

I contacted Alex. He said something like :'What kind you is diving?' I tell him 'recreational diving, mostly less than 30 meters for long periods of time' he asked something like 'How is it you are big?' So I sent him my height and weight and measures-the-foot. Then I cut him loose.

What I got is a super comfortable fin that is delightful to swim with - both underwater and for long distances on the surface. It is easy to take off and put on and very good as deep as I've taken it - about 30 meters - in a 3 mil suit with about 7lbs of weight. It is also superb in the pool and cruises nicely at about an 18 second 25meter pace - but also sprints well. If the pool is calm I can do 25m in one kick and about 40 seconds. I feel like the blade is probably at it's best and around a 15sec x 25m pace If I am kicking continuously. It is possible to swim with very little energy expenditure - which is nice for open water dives.

With a 5 mil suit and 9lbs of weight it feels slightly underpowered - but this is probably at least in part because I am used to using my Tropol for winter diving - a much heavier and stiffer fin which I have taken to almost 50 meters - and partly because I am a little underweighted for as shallow as most of my diving is. (The Tropol actually adds weight - so without it I am underweighted)

If you are a recreational diver I suggest you give him all your basic info, tell him what kind of diving you do, what suit and weights, and what your priorities are - comfort, depth etc.

In other words: Keep it simple!
 
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