The hundreds of fins on the market all have one thing in common – they exist to help you move through the water with ease.
But which ones do it best? John Bantin measured the thrust power of 35 different pairs of fins. From weakest to strongest, here’s what he found.
There was a time when there were two types of fin: slipper-style, or open-heel with a strap. They were made of solid rubber and they came in a single color – black.
Now there is a huge choice – each with its own unique selling proposition, each with a manufacturer keen to tell you why its model is best.
So how big are the actual differences between the many models on offer – and which perform best in the water?
Diver decided to find out – and, from a selection of 35 different pairs of fins, came up with the definitive answer. You may or may not like what we discovered, but as usual Diver tells it as it is.
THE TEST
We asked each UK distributor of fins to supply us with two or three pairs of its choice in the largest size available.
We knew our test diver normally used size XL but we also knew that the elasticity of thermoplastic fins and the compressibility of neoprene boots, combined with the short time he would need to wear the fins, would allow him to test smaller sizes if necessary.
Our aim was to measure the force exerted by the fins in a consistent way without the aid of a machine.
So the test diver was placed in a swimming-pool and connected by a line, via a pulley, to a spring-balance that would measure the amount of thrust he achieved.
In order to eliminate any additional effect caused by negative buoyancy, the neutrally buoyant diver was positioned just below the surface, with the connection to his body projecting just above it.
If the diver sank lower than the set position, the line would foul the edge of the pool and the reading would be disqualified.
If the diver came too shallow, his fins would break the surface and the reading would, again, be disqualified.
Comfortably warm in a wetsuit in the 29.5°C pool water, the test diver would take up the strain by finning gently, applying around 4-5kg of thrust.
He would then fin as hard as possible for 5-10 seconds until a maximum reading was achieved. In this way the test diver’s stamina did not affect the results.
The exercise was not aerobic, and the diver took ample breaks between attempts.
Having taken pains to arrange the test in as controlled a manner as possible, we were concerned that sometimes we would get a wide range of results from the same pair of fins, while other pairs showed an uncanny consistency, giving identical results every time they were tried.
We put this down to the fact that finning technique seems to be much more important with certain designs than with others. In other words, with some models of fin it is only possible to get a good result if the finning action is just right, while other fins will perform well regardless of subtle differences in finning action.
Where our table shows a range of results, the greater figure indicates what was possible when we got it right. A single figure indicates that it was easy to get it right!
The fins were tested in random order. Various models were then re-tried as a control throughout the day to make sure that our test diver was as efficient at sprint-finning at the end of the day as he was at the beginning.
THE FINS
There is a lot of duplication in the world of fin design and – with the notable exception of a handful of avant-garde designs such as the Force fin – the main difference, superficially, between models still comes down to whether they are slipper-style or open-heel.
Slipper fins are designed primarily for snorkellers, for whom overall weight both in and out of the water is often a prime consideration.
Generally, they give a good performance, but can chafe the feet if they don’t fit properly.
Because, during finning, the leverage is directed on to the skin of the wearer’s foot, they need to be a snug fit, and many free-divers wear socks either of neoprene or ordinary nylon to reduce the rub.
With less weight and drag, slipper fins often gave better results; but the comfort advantage of strap fins combined with boots far outweighs any gain in finning efficiency.
Hence most serious divers use strap fins.
If you intend to use your fins with a drysuit, be sure that the foot-pockets will accommodate the boots.
Often, but not always, the larger-size foot-pocket comes with a larger blade although sometimes the blade remains the same whatever the foot-pocket dimension.
Although fins all seem to work in more or less the same way, some have been developed to be very flexible across their width in order to scoop water away from the diver, whereas other designs are more rigid and impart more of a flicking action.
HOW DID THEY PERFORM?
There was no way we could have anticipated what the results of the test would be.
We were, for instance, very surprised that our most modest performers, the Saekodive Aquapower fins (thrust 10.9kg; price £50), did less well than the similar-looking, and also Taiwan-made, NDiver Own Label fins (see below).
Perhaps it had something to do with the sizing and the flexibility of the material used, for the foot-pockets of the NDiver fins were a lot more generous and the blades more supple.
The puny-looking IST Velox fins (thrust 12kg; price £10) probably represent the minimum a fin maker can offer.
However, bearing in mind that without fins our tester could manage less than 3kg of thrust, even a pair of these unpretentious items still more than quadruple a diver’s swimming performance.
Weighing in as the lightest fins and also the cheapest in this contest, they delivered their expectedly modest results consistently – proving that they represented a small amount of money well spent.
Tabata is a Japanese company that makes its fins in Taiwan but mainly sells them in America under the TUSA brand. (Tabata USA – get it?)
The TUSA Platina fins (thrust 11.8-12.7kg; price 80) give the salesperson something to talk about, with a complex two-part design reminiscent in styling of Japanese cars in the 1970s.
Instead of integrating two different plastics within the injection mould, a separate, harder, plastic chassis sits underneath the softer fin-blade.
TUSA call it the “Dual Acceleration System”, but we found that both the cheaper Liberator X-Ten and the popular TUSA Imprex left the Platinas for dead in the test.
Next in the performance stakes came the rather inexpensive-looking Beaver Velocity fins (thrust 13.2kg; price £30) from Italy.
These fins had blades which appeared to match more closely the rigidity of the Saekodive product but they appeared to have a poorer finish.
It was unusual to see an Italian plastic product second-placed in the quality of its finish to one from the Far East.
The similarly plain-looking Seac Vela fins (thrust 13.2kg; price £50) gave us consistent results that were not outstanding.
These fins use an inverted V-shape of soft black rubber inset in the main part of the fin-blade to achieve a scooping effect, the fin blade widening as more pressure is applied.
With their old-fashioned vented design, the Seamann-Sub SF-7 fins (thrust 13.2kg; price £30), which are made for the German company by Diverplast of Italy, were out-performed by a similar Beuchat design.
Unlike the latter, they have quick-release buckles and a blade shape which is more waisted towards the fin-pocket.
However, a heart-busting performance from our tester proved that these fins were consistent in what he could make them do, despite the fact that they were unable, ultimately, to shift as much water as their Beuchat rivals could when used in the right way.
Mares, master of the scooping fin, has now also come up with one that “flicks”. It is called the Mares Rapida (thrust 13.4kg; price £40), and it is intended to be an entry-level fin to complement the more expensive products that Mares offers.
In common with all of Mares’ strap fins, this design comes with the advantages of the Advanced Binding System (ABS), which allows the wearer to lever down a pre-adjusted ankle strap so that the fin fits the foot as snugly as possible.
It neatly dispenses with the need to have a quick-release mechanism. Our test results proved that the Rapidas were easy to use consistently, but the thrust of the uncluttered flat blades was not up there with the leaders.
These fins are not available in the larger foot sizes and only in softer colours (including pink).
The IST Pro-power fins (thrust 12.7-13.6kg; price £27) looked cheap by comparison to some others, with a weak-looking strap that appeared similar to that of the NDiver Unidives.
Obviously the Taiwanese haven’t yet perfected the art of injection moulding and combining different plastics in the way that the Italians have. The test results tell the rest of the story.
One of the first models of fin to use a scooping design was the Mares Plana Avanti (thrust 13.6kg; price£ 55). It was a design breakthrough, and many of the world’s divers took to them like ducks to water.
As you would expect from such a long production run, these fins are highly finished. They have deep side rails which keep them firm along their length, and there are soft black rubber flutes in the blades to make them very flexible width-wise.
They were among the first design to use a foot-pocket that encompassed the whole of the diver’s foot up to the heel, and internal rails help eliminate the suction effect which often causes difficulty when pulling fins off in the water at the end of a dive.
The unique ABS buckles make them easy to fit and remove. Although they performed consistently in our test, we were surprised that the Plana Avantis’ results were rather disappointing in comparison with some others, but I suppose time moves on.
The Seaway Arrow fins (thrust 10.9-14kg; price £32) offered a very flexible fin with a long foot-pocket which was definitely more comfortable than some. However, it proved quite hard to get the optimum performance out of these fins every time.
Because the results varied so much from run to run, our tester made many more runs than with most of the other fins in order to make sense of the results we were getting.
The NDiver Flexa fins (thrust 13.4-14kg; price £15) are slipper fins which are not particularly impressive to look at. But, with a more conventionally sized blade than the IST Velox fins, they performed better.
The Technisub Stratos FP slipper fins (thrust 14.5kg; price £32) were much more consistent; but we believe that their test result was hampered by the fact that they were supplied in a size that proved painfully small.
The US Divers Pulse fins (thrust 14.5kg; £40) were also very consistent, giving us the same reading again and again.
While not the highest-performing design, they are a high-quality product which look to be made well enough to satisfy the hard-to-please American consumer.
The Seamann-Sub SF1 fins (thrust 13.6-14.6kg; price £40) incorporate a layer of soft rubber extending down from the foot-pocket to give flexibility across the blade. They look identical to Typhoon Cutters.
(Sadly, Typhoon declined to send us any fins for this test.) Beautifully made in very flexible, almost sensuous, materials, the SF1s returned better results than their SF7 stablemates.
Mares’ top fin, the Plana Avanti Quattro, has four inset “scooping” flutes of rubber rather than the two of the original Plana Avanti design.
Now the company has introduced the Mares Plana Avanti X3 (thrust 14.3-14.6kg; price £73), with three such flutes.
It is therefore interesting to compare the results of our test and see how the number of flutes and therefore the flexibility of the blade across its width affects the results.
Of fins that “flick”, the experienced Italian manufacturer Cressi-sub is probably the brand-leader.
No-one knows more about injection-moulding polymers than the Italians, and Mr Cressi was the man from whom many of his local rivals learned their trade.
The latest Cressi Space Frog fins (thrust 14-14.6kg; price £59) have the foot-pocket gently integrated with the blade and use a mixture of materials to make them more forgiving in use than the bigger Master Frogs from which they have evolved.
With this design, finning technique was important if you wanted to get the most out of them. Their blades flex very little across their width, but they feel as if they would “shift a lot of water” on the end of the right pair of legs!
Some retailers say that TUSA Imprex fins (thrust 15kg; price £65) “just walk out of the shop” – so little is the effort needed to sell them.
At first glance they are very similar to the Mares Plana Avanti range, but with little concession in the design department to dipping the blade away from the foot.
This means that the load stays firmly under the sole, which could explain why our performance figures for these fins were very consistent but not top-of-the-league.
That said, they are a nicely finished product with a foot-pocket that encompasses the heel, and the blades are very flexible in the centre to provide plenty of “scoop”. No wonder they sell easily.
The TUSA Liberator X-Ten fins (thrust 15kg; price £40) are almost standard issue among many American divers. Although unexceptional in appearance, these lightweight fins scored consistently well in our test, justifying their popularity.
We have come to expect quick-release buckles on fin straps, so the French-made Beuchat Contact Pro fins (thrust 14.5-15.4kg; price £40) surprised us by not having any.
That is not to say that these fins did not prove good performers in the water.
The Seac Twin Effect F100 fins (thrust 13.6-15.5kg; price £27) are nice-looking slipper fins which at first glance could fool you into thinking they are as long as the big Quattro Power fins. They are not.
Our results were quite variable (a range of nearly 3kg) but, taking their best performance, they acquitted themselves quite well.
Are we about to witness the return to popularity of black rubber at the world’s dive-sites? Scubapro, after years of using thermo-plastics, has re-introduced black rubber with the Jetfin (thrust 14.5-15.5kg; price £69).
Yes, all you geriatric divers who thought that Jetfins went out with the ark – you read that right!
I remember being unable to get rid of mine at a car-boot sale, but I recently met a young Japanese diver who thought he’d bought the latest thing in diving technology.
Scubapro seems to have identified a new niche and, I am told, now plans to concentrate on selling these negatively buoyant fins, which were also by far the heaviest of our test selection.
So what improvements have been made over the traditional design?
Apart from a new mix of materials which I am told they use, but which I have no way of confirming, they look exactly like the ones I owned 15 years ago – right down to the impossible-to-thread-or-adjust-underwater stainless-steel buckles held in by pins with the ends hammered over.
These are the original Jetfins!
How did they perform in our test? Although they felt heavy, and the foot-pockets are short, they proved as good as many others.
The Dacor Pursuit fin (thrust 14.6-15.5kg; price £40) has a blade design not too dissimilar to the Mares Rapida – even the angle to the foot-pocket is identical.
Although a bigger performer than the Rapida, they were still not among the best performers.
But they were more than adequate, despite the fact that they were probably the plain-Janes of the whole collection. Unlike the Rapidas, Pursuits are available in XL.
The Genesis Aquaflex fins (thrust 14.6-15.5kg; price £50) were almost identical to the Mares Plana Avantis, even in price, save for the absence of the ABS buckle system and the Mares badging.
Like the Plana Avantis, they are made in Estonia. We were therefore surprised to find that we got a different, better result from the Genesis Aquaflexes than we did from the Plana Avantis.
However, closer inspection revealed the Aquaflexes to be two sizes smaller in the foot-pocket. For some reason, this had improved their performance.
Our test diver preferred the fit of the XL fins to the Regular size and felt that, while the smaller fins were OK for the sprint test, in the sea he would soon grow fed up with the fit.
The Cressi-sub Gara 2000 fins, whose massively long flicking blades are often favoured by free-diving champions, were not included in this test.
However, the Cressi-sub Master Frog fins (thrust 15-15.5kg; price £63) represent a cut-down version more suitable for scuba, and their broad featureless expanse of blade, angled well away from the plane of the foot-pocket, makes no concession to side-slip.
They need short powerful thighs to get the best out of them.
The gorgeous-looking NDiver ndiver fins (thrust 14-15.6kg; price 30) got close to the first division by pulling nearly to the 16kg mark.
For those prepared to pay more, the sexiest-looking fins in this line-up were undoubtedly the Italian Technisub Idea3 fins (thrust 13.6-15.7kg; price £50). The blades of the Idea3s dip away at an angle from the almost full-length foot-pocket in one continuous and integrated line.
This gives a concave under-surface combined with the sort of curved upper surface that you are inclined to run your hand across purely for pleasure.
The strong side rails to the blades of the Idea3s give way to widening panels of the softest plastic that are designed to shovel up the water and send it thrusting out behind the diver.
We were disappointed we could not get the results we might have expected from such an attractive product.
A beautiful-looking design from another country where appearances count are the French Beuchat Activa fins (thrust 12.7-15.9kg; price £50).
They felt good too; and, during one attempt, they nearly reached the impressive 16kg thrust level, although our test diver ended up turning out a wide variety of results ranging from a puny 12.7kg.
He found it hard to be consistent with these fins. We put this down to an almost rigid fin blade, robustly reinforced with side rails in two different materials, which was unforgiving if not presented to the water at precisely the right angle.
While many manufacturers blatantly copy leading brands, there will always be those who wish to go their own way. Bob Evans in California definitely falls into the latter category.
I last saw him at the American DEMA trade show surrounded by many prototypes of his revolutionary fin ideas.
In recent years, Bob Evans’ Force fins have established themselves as something more than just a quirky side-show to mainstream fin design, and the pair we tried were up there with the best.
The problem with Force fins is that they are just so different. Cast from a solid lump of almost indestructible polyurethane, they neither look pretty nor, for most people, feel quite right on the feet at first.
In fact, you may feel you are hardly wearing fins at all! The straps are just lengths of bungey cord with moveable heel pads.
I am told that the fins force their way on to your feet as you use them (rather in the way that the propeller of a boat screws itself tighter as it rotates), so the strap is there just so you don’t lose them when you take it easy.
I first tried a pair of Force fins for Diver several years ago, and asked an experienced dive guide to wear them while I photographed him during a dive.
When we arrived back at the boat, the dive guide declared that they were completely useless! However, so efficient were these fins that I was too breathless from trying to keep up with him to explain his error.
Ideally suited to a high-frequency flutter kick, the Pro Force fins (thrust 15-16.4kg; price £94) proved to be among the front-runners in our test, although our test diver doubted if he could spend a whole dive at the sprint and wondered how they would perform with long leisurely fin strokes.
We suggest that you may need to persevere with these fins before you get the benefit of their undoubted power.
A more conventional offering, the NDiver Unidive fins (thrust15-16.4kg; price £40) did well in a recent Diver Tests assessment, and the results in the swimming-pool endorsed this.
A long soft section extends down from the foot-pocket and divides the main body of the fin blade, supported on either side by rigid strengtheners.
Although these fins are not beautiful, our reservations about the apparent softness of the fin-straps proved unjustified.
We were surprised by the results obtained with the Ocean Edge XPress fins (thrust 15-16.4kg; price £35).
They had such short foot-pockets that they promised to be quite uncomfortable, and their overall design looked inauspicious.
Their quick-release buckles were well disguised, and did not get discovered until late in the test. Made of a unique and secret material, the blades of these fins were so soft that we found we could literally roll them up.
The surprise came when we tried them in the water. With nearly 16.5kg of thrust on the test dial during the best run, they proved to be up among the top performers.
The original Cressi-sub Frog fin (thrust 15.5-16.5kg; price £52) was probably the first design ever to put the load on top of the foot in the way that’s ideal for a penalty shoot-out. It’s an idea now commonly used by other manufacturers.
This design uses plastics which are much more flexible than those of either the Space Frog or Master Frog, two big favourites with big kickers.
Nevertheless, it was these fins among all the Cressi-sub products tested that proved to be the best performers. They are also of the highest quality and finish.
The promising-looking Technisub Ala fins (thrust 15-16.6kg; price £52), which seemed very wide for their length, were among the big hitters of the slipper fins tested.
Marginally better, however, were the Mares Plana Avanti Quattro Power slipper fins (thrust 15.7-16.6kg; price £70) with their over-length “scooping” blades.
They were the largest of all the fins tested, and, as with the Technisub Alas, we felt our test diver was not equipped with the short-limb leverage power that would have enabled him to make even better use of them.
The strange-looking split-fin “Nature’s Wing” design from Apollo, a Japanese manufacturer, comes in floppy matt-black rubber.
Heavy and rather unattractive, the Apollo Bio-fin Pro fins (thrust 16.4-16.8kg; price £130) seemed to have little to commend them, including their hefty price-tag. However, when it came to performance, they proved exceptional.
So which pair proved best of all?
Strong performers came in a wide range of prices – from expensive items such as the Apollo Bio-fins, the Pro Forces, the Mares Plana Avanti Quattro Powers, Cressi-sub Frogs and Technisub Alas; to the cheaper NDiver Unidives and Ocean Edge Xpress fins.
However, one model stood alone in its ability to deliver a big performance consistently.
Many years have passed since this magazine first started to do comparison tests of fins.
We have done them in several different ways, and we are not sure whether it is encouraging or embarrassing to find that the same model of fins seems to produce the best results whichever way we choose to test them.
So, nice as it would be to find a new “best” fin, we have to admit that once again the Mares Plana Avanti Quattro ABS fins (thrust 16.8kg; price 86) produced the top results – and did so time and again regardless of how our test-diver varied his technique.
The Plana Avanti Quattros are a beautifully made product. They are exceptionally comfortable, with a long foot pocket which accommodates the sole of the foot right up to the heel.
They have the unique Mares Advanced Binding System. (No, ABS has nothing to do with these fins being so fast they need brakes!) This makes them very easy to put on – an action that is almost possible without using your hands.
The four flutes of soft rubber inset into a harder blade made rigid by thick side-struts channel the thrust well.
Although not cheap, it’s no wonder that these fins are seen in use by so many diving instructors and dive-guides around the world.
CONCLUSIONS
All the fins gave far more thrust than we expected. Remember, without fins our test swimmer could manage less than 3kg of thrust, whereas with fins he was sometimes hitting close to 17kg!
Thrust is a useful measure for fins. Minimising the effort of finning not only increases a diver’s ability to cover larger distances but also, if less energy is needed to move, then less air is used up.
However, scuba-diving is not a competitive sport and speed is not everything. Individual divers need to take other factors, such as comfort and fit, into consideration before buying fins.
SUPPLIERS
- Apollo Europe 01202 677128
- Aqua-Lung UK (Technisub, US Divers) 01162 124200
- Beaver Sports (Beaver, Genesis) 01484 512354
- Blandford Sub-Aqua (Mares) 01923 801572
- CPS Partnership (TUSA) 01424 775729
- Cressi-sub 01484 310130
- DCM (Ocean Edge) 0181 399 7049
- Hydrotech (Dacor) 01455 274106
- M&S; (Saekodive) 01342 300162
- Northern Diver (NDiver) 01257 254444
- Scubapro 01256 812636
- Sea & Sea (IST) 01803 663012
- Seac 01226 341133
- Seaway Direct 01548 844299
- Simpson Lawrence (Beuchat) 0141 427 5331
- Swanborough (Seamann-Sub) 01964 532202
- UWI Circle (Force) 01420 544422
