waterway glide vs. leaderfins hyper

So Dave, do you feel that starting out, a fin with a smaller angle is the way to go?

I agree dave - in the video of my short burst in the waterway you can see the amount of back bend. I started using a higher frequency kick along with more arch in order to keep my knees straight - it works pretty well. After I was used to the waterway the hyperfin really seemed easier. Without much effort I have only very slight knee bend with it - with a little effort almost none.

For recreational diving - just to insert my probably unwanted opinion - I think the nemo is okay - its a good first fin because its incredibly durable and solid for the $$ but more blade angle is really nice. I can glide in a more streamlined configuration with the hyperfin largely for that reason. With the nemo it is very difficult to glide well without bending your knees a fair amount.

I'd say more blade angle is ideal - pm me if you change your mind ttm! I'm shipping tomorrow.

No, I think that's way too good of a deal to pass up, and I don't plan on setting any records with it. I'm gonna use it to play around with open water dives, but mostly for pool training.

hi everone

have been playing with different kicking styles with my Hyperfin, what are your opinions on the best stroke for this fin:

1. Continious slow undulations
2. Kick and glide
3. Kick kick and glide
4. other style???

any opinions are welcomed with interest.

DD

I do them all The quick short continuous ones are very nice for speed. Slow ones great for medium/slow cruise - and the glide pattern gives the longest dives. It depends on my purpose.

interesting, was curious which kick style is most efficient with this fin, i guess it depends on a persons body type and build aalthough i see by yours the kick and glide gives you the longest dive, would this also meen it would give the greatest distance on 1 breath?

just curious as trying to work out what to use for Dynamic application.

Personally I do the continuous stroke, as I have been lazy in ballasting myself for the glide styles. I feel that the continuous stroke eats up more energy and shortens my time underwater.

You should try out all styles and see which one is best for you. Thoroughly test each style until you find one you like.

not to forget is that speed is related to form and friction drag and that for to o2 consumption

Hi everyone,

Some cool news that's burning a hole in my pocket:

1. After many years of wanting to help people find great monofins for freediving, open water swimming and swimming like a dolphin, I'm starting an online monofin store that will feature the Triton hyperfins and monofins by Max. Look for the website by the end of September. I'm excited because I'll finally be able to get the perfect fin for myself, too! :inlove

2. I've started some finswimming programs here in Vancouver and hope to bring them to other cities in North America. This will naturally expand to freediving courses as well. Look for more exciting stuff from Sea Hiker in 2009: www. seahiker. com (check out the new site update)

3. I just tested a brand new piece of swimming gear called the DOL-Fin yesterday. The guy who made it has spent over 8 years perfecting the design and brought it all the way from Arizona for me to use and test. I'll post photos and video of it soon. Looks like it will give the Lunocet a real run for the money and perhaps provide us with a real option for recreational diving, open water travel, and convenience (it is very small and light).

One of the things I've wanted to do for a long time is create a process for helping people order the perfect fin. So I need your help with a few questions:

1. What do you think are the top five most important desired attributes that monofin makers tend to get wrong, ignore, or simply don't address with their designs?

2. What process of ordering stock or custom fins would make you feel as though your order will be correctly filled and you'll get the monofin of your dreams?

One of the things that I will work very hard with Max on is building monofins that have consistent manufacturing (as much as is feasible). I know that a horrible situation is when you have your ideal monofin and then it breaks and you need to replace it. But the monofin cannot be duplicated by the manufacturer. Egads! :rcard

If there were three things (in order of importance) that would really excite you in terms of being able to buy a monofin, what would they be:

-Great responsive service: ie. being able to talk to someone on the phone about what you need, filling out a detailed order form, etc...
-Range of stock monofins at slightly lower prices that would ship within a week
-Custom monofins made to spec (longer lead time and slightly more costly)
-Damage and defect 100% refund / replacement
-Guides (video and ebook) to monofin technique, selection, training, etc...
-Cheaper shipping
-High fin quality
-The opportunity to see your feedback as a freediver/monofin swimming incorporated, credited and manifested in a future fin design?
-Monofin sponsorship
-Other products and accessories
-Cool paint / decals designs to make you look like a badass
-A trade-in program / monofin exchange/upgrade
-Something I haven't mentioned...

If you say "all of the above" well, that's what I intend to do - but I still want your top three desires!

Good luck to everyone at Worlds....

Pete

Congratulations! I wish you good luck in your endeavour. I have the same dream as you, to help others find a perfect fin, which is why I took a leap of faith and bought one of Max's fins. When it turned out to be so good, I had to share my discovery with everyone. I hope you find great satisfaction in what you're doing!

Well, the first issue I'd like to see resolved is the V bend and crazy footpocket bend (like Ben posted). Some fins have those issues. But if you're only stocking fins from Max, then you shouldn't have those problems, at least for the Hyperfins.

I don't quite understand your second question, so I'm not going to try and answer it and risk looking like an idiot.:t

I'd definately like to see responsive service. In this industry, I think it's a must and definately gives you an edge. Cheaper shipping too, cause I live so far away from all the monofin manufacturers that shipping is horrible. I believe Kathryn McPhee had to pay quite a bit for her shipping too. Last but not least, other products. I think things like front mounted snorkels are a must to have in your shop. We would require those to train, and it would be great if everything could come in one package, instead of having to order a fin from you then having to order the snorkel somewhere else.

I think it would be great too if our feedback could go into helping design a future fin. But as far as I know, you surround yourself with professional freedivers, and you would always get to hear feedback from them. I think that's good enough, as sometimes too much feedback from everyone can be quite overwhelming. So I think this option can be put on a hold for now.

Cheers mate. Can't wait to see your shop go online. I would support it, though I may probably order straight from Max, since he is nearer and shipping would be cheaper.

Good job, Pete. I wish you good luck, a lot of satisfied customers, and no reclamations!

As to your second question, one thing that causes a lot of frustration on both sides, is the lapse of information about the order status and delivery. Customers are nervous because they often do not even know if their order was received, or whether it was already shipped, and they then bomb the manufacturer with many emails. The manufacturer loses a lot of time with handling the email, feels to be harassed (some customers can really be a pain in the a** and are able to send you a dozen of emails within two days after submitting the order), the communication is then slow, sometimes less friendly than it should be, and the manufacturer has so less peace and time for the actual production.

The ideal would be an online tracking system, where the customer could check the status of his order any time without the need and hassle to wait from answer from the manufacturer or reseller. The manufacturer would just need to set the status to the right value each time it changes (some parts of it can be automated). Some examples of the possible status messages follow:

Order received; payment information pending/received; sizing information pending/confirmed; customization information pending/confirmed; fin in queue for production (+expected length of the queue in days); fin/blade/footpockets in production (day X of total estimated XY); product in finalization phase (paint, design,... day X of total estimated XY); packing and shipping in progress; fin shipped + credit card charged (+ the parcel tracking number and a link to their online tracking service). Then of course, the tracking system should also include warnings about planned holidays, or unplanned events that will cause a delay in the manufacture or shipping (i.e. "we fu**ed your fin up, and have to start all over"; or "just being rolled over by Russian tanks, will need a week or two to recover").

What's important is also the service before and after sale - having a FAQ page and a knowledge base about the right choice of the fin, about using it, carrying about it, repairing small defects, etc. Also selling repair kits is always a good idea - you can gain some extra money, and a lot of people will prefer getting the kit that is guaranteed to be well suitable for their fin, than buying the glue, rubber, or fiberglass tissue in their local store and risking that it won't match well with their fin. Also offering spare parts like one full wing, footpocket, or a blade may be interesting for some customers, but especially having them in the online offer will impress the visitors, and definitely show that your customer support is professional and far above the competition.

Then of course, offering bags, or even caps, towels, t-shirts, swimming suits, or other similar promotional objects with the company logo may represent quite a considerable source of extra income and it is excellent for publicity and building the image of the company. Even giving some smaller object like that for free with each monofin will have a very good impact - first it impresses the customer, and then it cares about additional advertisement when being used. And the cost of a cup, t-shirt, strings or speedos with a logo is certainly negligible in comparison to the price of the fin.

Many manufacturers and resellers ignore and violate laws and bank policies by charging customers' credit cards immediately at the purchase time. Correctly they should only charge the card no sooner than at the day of the shipping! There possibly may be exception for manufacturers, who may be allowed to precharge certain amount to cover the manufacturing cost, avoiding so the loss if the payment at the shipping day fails, but here you need to consult your local laws and your merchant bank policies.

With all this, a good online store can help you greatly, but similarly as with building a stone store, you need to count with considerable investment into the software (both in terms of time and money) if you expect it to be really helpful and above the level of the competition.

If you need some more information or advices, do not hesitate to ask. Ecommerce development is my profession, so I may be able to give you some more tips or hints.

EDIT: perhaps offering kind of insurance may be also interesting for many potential customers - for example paying some extra yearly fee, the customer would get his/her fin repaired or replaced without questions if it breaks. Of course, you'd need to calculate the price of such insurance carefully to be interesting for both sides, and also set the conditions so that it avoids too much abuse (i.e. sending the fin back to the manufacturer even if it is irreparable). Shipping of such insured fins should be paid both ways by the manufacturer/merchant, not the customer, of course. You need to take it in view when calculating the cost of the insurance.

Such insurance would help people chosing expensive fins, or generally fins from you, more easily than risking such a purchase without any warranty, so even if you calculate the insurance quite close to the limit of cost efficiency or even slightly below it, it will still help your business greatly.

One of the Big difficulties is determening the fin's stiffness before ordering.
It appears to differ with each manufacturer widely.


My Ideal monofin has:

Responsive blade,
30 degree footangle,
Has close fitting, evenly load spreading, right and left foot specific, not so flexible footpockets.
No boyancy change at depth, nutral boyancy.
Durable quality.
Not to much mass.

A cheap stirdy beginners model WITH a 30 degree footangle. For getting started and borrowing out to those intrested.

As for looks,
Blade and rubber colours following the suit manufactures' colours: Black, silver, blue, gold, green, red etc.

Ok, gotta run,

Kars

Comfort is huge for recreational divers. A fin you can stay in with all day, once you are used to it. For the hyperfin style it would be wonderful if they were easier to get in and out of. I envision a levered buckle. Most of my diving is in cold water - so comfort is a major concern - my feet are already under duress in 4c water. It is also impractical to have to take my gloves off to put the fin on - because my hands instantly become cold and will likely remain that way throughout the dive - not to mention the destruction of gloves which is pretty much a tradition with these kinds of fins!

So - two things - improvement of comfort and on/off for the hyperfin foot pocket. A recreation fin with plenty of blade angle, comfortable pockets and excellent performance. An entry-level fin that has some of these qualities but competes in price, durability and comfort with the waterway nemo is a good idea market-wise.

Max already has awesome customer service. The challenge will be to maintain that as the business grows. I think the wave-style blade has great market potential.



"In the beginning there was water. Then land was created to provide better materials for monofins..."

I'd like to sww one with Mustang footpockets on it in a more traditional shape- not what C4 has come up with so far.

Jon

Pete, congrats on the venture! Godspeed.

My 2 1/2 pesos: stock high end bifins too, fibre/carbon types please. Maybe even C4's with better footpockets (the OEM one are invariably awful). There seem to be several "low key" fibre bifin producers World wide that would love to have the type of outlet you mention.

Thanks for the awesome feedback, both in this thread and through other channels. I'll be responding to many of you in due course.

Simon, what high-end bi-fins would you like to see in the shop?

Three additional questions for you all:

-How far would you drive/travel to test a monofin if there were many styles and sizes to try and there was someone with fitting knowledge to help you?

-How long would do you think you need to test a monofin / bi-fin before buying one or being able to pinpoint what custom changes or attributes you would like to have? (try to take into consideration practical limitations on that - ie. 3 months is too long!)

-With only a small decrease in performance, would you be interested in a completely adjustable footstrap on the footpocket that would actually add comfort and could be used to increase or decrease tension for performance/recreational/winter diving? Or do you feel that modifying existing footpocket systems would degrade the performance too much? (I have my own thoughts and experience with this, but I'd like your opinion, too).



Pete

Yes to the last. (emphatically)
3 weeks - possibly two - minimum of seven two-hour dives.
depends on the timing

I know several divers, for example, who'd be willing to travel here for a monofin clinic the combo would increase the draw.

When you get a chance - I'd like to discuss fins design - I have something sort of in progress

There's a few of us over here who are willing to make the 7-10 hour drive to Michigan to do the monofin course.

I would like to have a full weekend to try out a new fin. I think that after using a fin for a weekend I would know for sure if it was for me or not. Somtimes it only takes two times in the pool to know that it will eat your feet up and never be a good match.

I would be OK with a small derease in performance if it really was that comfortable and I could wear it in winter- wth thick socks undet the ice.

Jon

Pete, I bought some C4's but have heard good things about other fibre and carbon makers. To be honest I went for (fell for) the C4 name and good marketing. If I had seen other options I may have been tempted. Trux may help with the list:
carbontec
matmas
this page lists some nice ones, monos too: XFINS

Look around the European websites. good luck!

Well, I have around 20 fin manufacturers listed here: website equipment fins @ APNEA.cz, but that list is still far from being complete. Even many of the big brands are still missing - at the beginning I was rather adding those specialized in freediving, but added later also others offering fins used in freediving. Still a lot of work with adding the others though.

As for monofins, in France, besides the usual monofin brands, especially Breier and Chen-Bin are rather popular.