How to Buy the Right Swim Fins

hey there this is Freddy with 5280 scuba.com fins haven't changed in decades right wrong get to it in just a minute the way fins are made today makes a big difference when you travel with all the weight restrictions we have and the size restrictions we have makes a big difference the days of yester year when a pair of fins could wear weigh almost 10 lbs that's over that's done you can't put that in your luggage and carry anything else these days so they're making a lot lighter with the composite materials their design is to get the maximized thrust with a shorter fin as well now so they fit in your luggage a little bit better there are actually fins now that come apart that at the hinges you can unscrew the blade from the foot pocket it's kind of nice because if you want to use a different blade for snorkeling free diving scuba diving you can keep the foot pocket that fits you the best and you can add a different blade so let's start with the tip you see some that are convex some that are concave the idea that they're doing this for is to elongate the thrust surface so this line is longer than a straight line it gives you a little bit more thrust surface okay now it could be done this way as well you have channeled the water to this surface and this this is a little bit longer than if it was just in a straight line they've also engineered how the water comes off the end of the fin so before I get to the split fin I'm going to talk about these little um guides when this is in a chamber and they're testing it and they're running water over it and they have like colored dye in it you can see what happens to the water when it comes off the fin the oldfashioned fins it didn't care so what happened is all the water just kind of went together and then it would just swirl yes you had some thrust but it just wasn't as effective if you can take this Fin and you know when your when your foot Scoops the water it's going to Channel with this blade it's going to channel the water to the outer edge with this blade it's going to keep it towards the Middle with this it's going to keep it alongside on the in on the inside so you're going to get a more even thrust of water coming off the end understanding that will help you understand the split fin the split fin was designed and probably the biggest revolutionary change in fins and what it did was it increased your surface of thrust area so where most fins have this surface area only this fin now has five times the thrust surface as any other regular fin so when you scoop the water what happens is it it scoops and as you're kicking these very side large side bolsters Channel a lot of water across the top of this fin now you'll notice these little guides they're different this fin channeled them to the outside in the middle and it just spread out the thrust this is trying to channel the thrust towards the inner blades and then off the end of the fin so there are are ridges that guide the water straight out but then all of these kind of turn towards the middle and that's when you scoop water you scoop a lot of water and you're throwing it right off it was designed like a seals flipper and the the technology is called Nature's Wings on these so they have to be stamped on there when they have a um a split fin when you try a split fin for the first time it almost feels like it doesn't work because they're about 60% more efficient than a regular fin so when you kick them kick very easy and you don't really feel like you're getting a lot of thrust because it is so easy to kick but in reality you are you're moving cruising right through the water okay next the foot pocket you you can see even in these fins here the way the foot pocket some put more of the foot pocket underneath some put more of the foot pocket on top it's really the design on how the blade Scoops and catches the water and then how the water from inside the foot pocket drains some are more open it's important that it's comfortable it's important that it is a material that's not going to break down because your foot pushes hard on this so it it needs to be comfortable on the top a scuba diving fin is meant to have a booty inside so it'll protect your upper part of your foot it'll also fill up some of the volume in here and then if any sand or anything gets in there uh it'll protect your foot very important about the foot pocket is the bottom if you had fins in the past most likely underneath here they were very flexible almost like rubber you could bend it no good not really not for scuba diving and here's why your foot fits inside the foot pocket and if that's real floppy when you bend your when you bend the fin to get some thrust this is just absorbs the energy and it doesn't transfer the energy out to the end of the fin but if this is very stiff right I mean that's nice and hard that transfers the energy to the end of the fin your foot fits inside and all the energy goes out to the edge and the outside of the fin also replaceable buckles and straps is an important feature these days because with a full foot fin if you split the sides throw the fin away you're done with an open heel fin if you have replaceable buckles and replaceable straps if you were to tear it cut it or something you can just buy another one cheap and your fin is still in good shape some of them even have a special kind of strap stainless steel spring and what this is meant to do is once you adjust it to your foot it stays that way forever you never you can't even change it on the Fly and it just stretches and holds right under your heel with the proper tension it's fully adjustable by you another part of the uh strap that most people don't realize most people wear their fin too tight they crank it in there because they think that's going to hold it in there nice and tight and that can restrict the blood flow in the heel you can get cramps so let's talk a little bit now about fit because that is a key part when people wear their fin too tight it pushes it in inside you can get cramped toes all that kind of stuff if it fits you properly the pivot point of the fin should be in the center of your ankle within about a half an inch to either side okay so a perfectly fitting fin would be the center of your ankle at the Pivot Point why if the fin were too small it would be out on the outside edge of your foot it would fit you know on the Outer Edge so you would use your shin muscles to propel that fin not your calf muscles if the fin were too large and and your foot was too far in you'd be using your calf muscles and not your shin muscles and that's how a lot of people cramp up with fins because they fit poorly but if it's balanced if it's the pivot point is in the center of your ankle very close to it then you're going to use a balance of both muscles and that's going to make a huge difference in your comfort the strap I usually tell people it's it should slide up and down on the back not Loosely semi snugly would be ideal you want it to slide up and down so you can move it easy once you get the fin set the strap set you don't have to adjust this every time you don't have to pop your Buckle off all you have to do is take the back strap put your finger in it and just pop it off or pop it on and that's the way to do it it's very simple on a ladder when you're on a boat also to reach back don't try to fiddle with the Buckle you might even drop your fin by accident grab that strap your fingers through the hole pop it off and then put your wrist through it and climb up the ladder so to summarize in the order of priority I think the fit is the most important part of your buying decision if it's not comfortable you're not going to want to use it if it doesn't fit you right it's not going to work right if the foot pocket's too big it's going to wave and it's going to move differently and so the fit is the absolute most important part for you next would be the materials that it's made out of the even more so than the design because if you were doing leg lifts with something that was solid Rubber and weighed 8 lbs you could do far less of them than if you had something that was silicone and it was only 2 lbs right and that's basically what you're doing underwater you're kicking that weight continually and then the design can make a very large difference the more efficient the fin the better your dive experience if you can stretch your dive a little bit longer you actually get more value underwater if you normally dive for 45 minutes per tank and just by using a fin would increase that by another 10 minutes you're getting more of your money's worth in that dive so those are the orders of importance well we've covered the recreational diving Fin and snorkeling fin you made it this far congratulations if I miss something or you have something to add would you just please leave it in the comments below that would help everybody out a bit

Channel: Leviathan Scuba

Views: 60,898

Keywords: dive, scuba dive, swim fin, flippers, snorkel fin, scuba diving, scuba fin

Id: 1uS0Ugka75A

Length: 10min 3sec (603 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 08 2017