Monofin To Travel With

[MBanks]

I'm hopefully going to do a spot of travelling at the end of the year, or the start of the new one (2008). I'm hoping to spend a fair amount of time in and under the water. Unfortunately I don't think I'll be able to take my LeaderFins mono with me as even when I have taken it with me on short trips it has been quite a mission, so I'm thinking traveling with a backpack and mono would kind of be even more of a problem.

One solution I had was to just travel in some trunks and just the mono However I thought what with the whole climate change scenario I may be left standing in the cold in my trunks at some random unexpected change of the weather!

So I was kind of considering other ways to get a mono around with me. I have seen the Finis Shooter Mono's that you can get :

SwimShop: Swimwear, Leisurewear & Accessories

Has anyone used one of these, obviously there isn't as much power transfer as with a larger blade. They are also expensive for their size, I was thinking of possible making my own smaller mono.

However, I then came to the conclusion that if I was going to make one, would it be possible to make a blade with some kind of memory material, so that the blade could be removed from the foot-pockets, and rolled up and stored in a tube?

So, I'm kind of asking what peoples opinions of the Fini Shooter Mono are, and also if anyone knows much about memory materials. I don't know a lot but I have some friends who might be able to help me out, but I thought I'd ask here and see if I can gain some valuable knowledge from someone who's already looked into that area

I would only be using the mono for fun

Also, has anyone else traveled with a mono much?
I look forward to seeing if I get any replies.
Thanks

Martin.

 

[Jon]

I've used that mono before and it's pretty much useless for any kind of freediving.

I would rather bring along a pair of snorkeling fins and just dolphin kick with those- which is what I did in the pool and got further with the snorkel fins than I did with that mono.

Jon

 

[MBanks]

Thanks for that, good point. Thinking about a roll up one now...

 

[Veronika]

Martin,
a thing you could consider is getting e.g. a Waterway Mono that is smaller in size. There are ones for Swimmers that are smaller or those for kids.
If that's not what you are looking for I'd just talk to Jyri (given that he is still at Specialfins / in the business) to find a custommade solution.

Veronika

 

[SanderP]

That tiny mono doesn't look too good.

Like Veronika said, a good solution would be a custom made composite monofin. You can order them almost in any size.

 

[MBanks]

Yeah, I've definitely decided against the small mono.

The next step is to find memory materials that I can use to make my own

 

[ahofbauer]

The Finis Shooter has one mayor defect that makes it useless for any kind of Freediving:
The Fin isn´t angled downward, so You´ll NEVER have it´s surface in line with Your legs.
You´ll get an acceptable kick upwards, but none downwards.
Think: It almost PULLS You backwards on the downkick.

However if anyone knows about any Shootersized Fin WITH
downward angle, please let me know about it.

Cheer up !

 

[ahofbauer]

Now that I come to think about it, it´s just a year ago that a guy showed me a very strange, allegedly Japanese or chinese, monofin.
It was built almost like a doblewidth stereofin, very long (maybe about 90cms long), with both footpockets side by side (like our kind of monofin).

I gave it a try and it behaved in a much better way than a pair of batfins at dolphinkick.

The most interesting advantage, however, should be the ability to pack it away without so much fuss. He used to cramp it into a backpack.
Though, no composit materials so far.

Good Air!