• Welcome to the DeeperBlue.com Forums, the largest online community dedicated to Freediving, Scuba Diving and Spearfishing. To gain full access to the DeeperBlue.com Forums you must register for a free account. As a registered member you will be able to:

    • Join over 44,280+ fellow diving enthusiasts from around the world on this forum
    • Participate in and browse from over 516,210+ posts.
    • Communicate privately with other divers from around the world.
    • Post your own photos or view from 7,441+ user submitted images.
    • All this and much more...

    You can gain access to all this absolutely free when you register for an account, so sign up today!

Waterways Monofin update

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.

bevan dewar

Well-Known Member
Sep 26, 2001
154
36
118
49
this thred follows on from the Tendonitis thread. Alun asked for a review of 2 new waterways monos i just got, and bogdan asked me to make mention of the new rail design.

got a LDM1 and LDM2. Last year i ordered the same 2 fins but this time i got 2 quite different fins.

Last years fins had the M1 being slightly stiffer than the M2. this time the M2 is stiffer.

last year the M1 came with a medium hardness footpocket and the M2 with the soft. this year they both have the soft footpocket(without the heal re-inforcement)

this years fns have a black rail on all 3 edges. i like this new rail but might remove it from the back/bottom edge. there was a hum form the blade which i think is from this.

alun, tried peters MD(but not the winged one). quite liked it. felt stiff, but i dont know what too stiff would feel like? leg fatigue i guess. only tried it from 30m. the footpocket on it felt too soft though. if i was getting a Middle distance i would ask for the slightly stiffer footpocket(on my LDM1 pictured), or even the stiffest footpocket(green i think it is?) if i were only doing one deep dive per day with it.

on the whole i think the fins are very good. you just have to make shure you know what youre getting.

does anybody know which fin is meant to be stiffer, the M1 or M2?
 
old LDM1 and new LDM1 and LDM2
 

Attachments

  • monofins1.jpg.jpg
    monofins1.jpg.jpg
    52.7 KB · Views: 483
thanks for the update...

a lot of people (including myself) get confused by which fins are stiffer and which are softer. i think the reason is because the fin designs are always changing! this is good in that the fins should be improving, but it makes it harder for people to know what they're getting.

i have owned a LDM1 and an LDM2.... the LDM2 is noticeably stiffer than the LDM1... and i prefer it... it's what i currently use.

i didn't even know you can have different stiffness footpockets. my footpockets look like bottom fin in the above photo.

i'm not sure i like the look of those rails? i'm surprised they don't affect performance. presumably they don't otherwise Bogdan wouldn't add them. what are they for? is it just protection? if so, then they would be more use for finswimming in a pool than deep freediving?...

it would be great it Bogdan could assign some numerical stiffness value to these fins so you know what you're getting. eg. the old LDM2 might be a "7" and the new LDM" is an "8" (slightly stiffer) etc -that kind of thing....

if your tendonitis is better, then it would be great if you could do a deep dive with each of those and let us know what you think....

thanks
 
  • Like
Reactions: bevan dewar
...and the verdict is unanamous: MDM2

i ascend 1.35m/s on average. for slower speeds a softer fin might well be better.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ben Gowland
In 2002 I had made huge order of custom blades from waterway. In the end, a fin I named 'W2' was my favourite. Finally, in late 2003 when 'surfing waves' with the W2, it cracked down the middle. I drilled a hole to stop the crack, and it helped. Finally about 6 weeks ago the crack got worse. So, I ordered two replacement W2's from waterway. They still had the schematics I had sent them two years earlier.

The CAFA nationals are coming up and I was hoping my new W2's would arrive in time for the nationals. They arrived a couple of weeks ago, but they were nothing like my old W2.

Here are the differences:
- Different material--way stiffer--so stiff the fins are useless.
- Big black rubber rail on one blade (like above photos), this rail has a huge AIR pipe in it, causing compression & buoyancy change, not to mention drag
- The other blade has the older style rail, a clear rail; my original W2 had no rails, the way I like it.
- Both types of rails are excessively difficult to rip off and they leave residue; the rails also interfered with the place where the footpocket was to be bonded (since my blades came without footpockets), so I had to rip the rails off in the area where the footpocket should go
- The new blades are FLAT, while my old W2 was nicely curved
- The old curve made the front stroke powerful and the back stroke easy, the flat blade loses this advantage
- The outer perimeter (shape) is not identical to my old W2, despite the fact that apparently the same schematics were used

So, these new fins are obviously not what I was hoping for. For the heck of it I tried a 70m dive with one of the new blades and it was hellishly difficult, taking 7 extra strokes to get to the surface with extra leg fatigue due to the extreme stiffness of the fin.

Last weekend I was supposed to be doing an 86m practice dive; I was forced to use my old cracked W2 fin. I had tried to bond a piece of fiberglass onto the fin, to fix the crack, but this popped off right at the start of my dive, so I turned around at 73m and then my fin cracked almost completely in half during the ascent, resulting in a 62 stroke ascent from 73m and a frustratingly hard dive considering the depth.

Now the nationals are this coming weekend and I don't have a fin to use. Bogdan told me I can't return the new W2 blades because they are custom. He told me he is coming to Vancouver during worlds (August 4), and he can use his knives to 'thin' out the new W2 blades in August.

Too little, too late.

In the meantime I'm considering buying a hand sander machine and just 'grinding' the fins to a thinner thickness.


Eric Fattah
BC, Canada
 
Eric,

what happened to your Chinese monofin that you used for your WR?

i think i will be buying myself an M2MD soon, considering Bevan is impressed with it. we have very similar diving speeds. the ironic thing is that the M2MD was the first fin i bought, back in 2001. i've long since sold it and have gone through three other fins. it would be funny if i end up with the model i started with!

sorry for going off on a tangent here...

Eric, what safety do you have for these dives? do you have a working DRUMs unit now, or are you relying on buddy and lanyard like most people. i'm been thinking about whether i should limit my depth this summer for safety reasons. i don't actually feel any specific reason to limit myself right now - no narcosis or equalisation problems - but the risks inevitably increase with depth - particularly in harsh conditions. presumably you have to draw the line somewhere... or do you? maybe it is ok to keep going provided you take things slower and slower the deeper you go...

what are your thoughts on this matter? (i've already asked Bevan what he thinks.)
 
eric, someone i know hand sanded their waterway blade to make it softer, which it did. one unexpected consequence was that the blade developed an up curve.

does anyone know what fin carlos used for his 102?
apparenty when he tried stigs MDM2 he was very impressed.

bevan
 
wouldn't it be easier and more precise, just to take off one or two layers from the upper side of the fin with some sharp knife , than hand sanding it?

I think it's extremly difficult to produce two fins, that feel the same, even if you use same materials and are trying to curve them in the same way.
there are many variables that influence the final outcome. if you are a relatively experienced finswimmer you will almost always find a difference.
therefore the best you can do is to try out the fin before buying it (I know it's seldom possible) .

In my opinon, the rails actually should affect performance, but in a positive way. the rails on side edges should improve the flow of water around them (recent findings and trends in finswimming). but the bottom rail won't have this effect, so it's maybe just for the fin protection there?
 
Guys, I highly recommend the model1 LDMD !:D

When I started finswimming I borrowed a model1 LD. This works pretty good for dynamics but thought it was a bit too soft for constant. I tried the Model1 MD and found it too stiff. I emailed Bogdan and asked if I could get a Model1 fin with stiffness between Long distance and Middle. He said sure !

I got the fin and at first in the pool found it a bit too stiff. But in the ocean was just great specially when trying to swim up from 70m. The blade design is the same as the MD, I'm guessing with just fewer layers. I think it's a bit closer in stiffness to the MD then the LD. But still quite a bit softer then the MD. Feels nice as the tail is softer then the MD but still has some stiffness in the middle when you want to step on the power. Mine has the green footpocket which is great for power, you don't lose any through the footpocket bending. Downside is it hurts to have the fin on for more then 15minutes or so.

A friend of mine loved the fin and ordered 3 exactly the same, he kept one and sold the other 2.

Cheers,
Wal
 
Last edited:
thanks for that Wal. most usefull imput. will now try a M1 MDLD and a M2MD. between them i should have a winner.

one thing i'm undecided on is whether to ask for strait of curved blade. i've always thought the curve helps with the power stroke. and contrary to what many think the curve seems to causes the blade to sit in ones slipstream better than the usual/opposite angled blade of other fins.(if one is freefalling sliightly tilted over on to ones back, and with knees a bit relaxed)

and if anyone can help me with this one: my foot measures 275mm. i have always been sent 290's and have been happy with the fit. but i recently tried a slightly broken in 260 and the fit was equally comfortable. if anyone with a waterway has a similar sized foot could you say what size footpocket you are using? thanks
bevan
 
DeeperBlue.com - The Worlds Largest Community Dedicated To Freediving, Scuba Diving and Spearfishing

ABOUT US

ISSN 1469-865X | Copyright © 1996 - 2024 deeperblue.net limited.

DeeperBlue.com is the World's Largest Community dedicated to Freediving, Scuba Diving, Ocean Advocacy and Diving Travel.

We've been dedicated to bringing you the freshest news, features and discussions from around the underwater world since 1996.

ADVERT