SCUBALAB REVIEWED 18 New Fins
6Pages

THE BEST NEW DESIGNS FACE OFF Have you ever dived with a really bad pair of fins? It's the worst. Your legs and ankles ache, you huff and puff your tank away and you get nowhere. Worse, you just don't have any fun. No doubt about it: Bad fins suck. Which is why ScubaLab invests such considerable time, effort and money into our fin tests. No diver should have to dive with substandard fins, not when there are so many excellent choices, many of them priced very reasonably. Since our last fin review in 2005, a number of interesting new designs have hit the market. In order to help you find the pair that's right for you, we took 18 new models, 12 test divers and five test supervisors to Capt. Don's Habitat on Bonaire (see "Our Thanks to," p. 73) and conducted the latest round of the industry's most thorough evaluation of recreational dive fins. Our test is comprised of two phases. The first phase involves objective performance measures of speed (as measured by digital underwater speedometers), thrust (as measured by calibrated scales) and maneuverability (as measured by time on a slalom course)—these are reported here with each individual review. The second phase is what we call our ergonomie evaluation. During open-water reef dives, our team of multiple test divers evaluates each fin in 10 areas of performance using a 1 to 5 scale (5=Excellent, 4=Very Good, 3=Good, 2=Fair and 1 = Poor) and records their comments on waterproof scorecards. At the end of our week in Bonaire, we then asked each test diverto rank the fins from best to worst. The fins that got the most No. 1 votes have been awarded the additional honor of a Testers' Choice rating. When you add all the data up, as we have in the following reviews, you get a pretty good picture of what you can expect from a pair of fins. (For complete data and a detailed description of all the tests, see In Depth, p. 106-107.) Good news: When we sat down to review the results of this year's test, we found most of them up to the task, with only a few performing below what we would consider average. And you don't necessarily have to pay a lot for a good pair of fins—some of the top performers also earned our Best Buy recommendation. Here are the reviews in alphabetical order by fin style. The red bars in the graphs that accompany each individual fin review show the highest average speed, highest thrust and fastest slalom time for that fin as recorded by our test divers. The range shown for each category—speed, thrust and slalom time—indicates the lowest to the highest score in each category. For an explanation of how we tested fins for speed, thrust and slalom times, see In Depth, page 107. 64 SCUBA DIVING N OVEM B E R 2007 Fastest Fins 1. Mares Avanti Superchannel (full-foot) (2.4 mph) 2. Mares Avanti Excel; Oceanic Caribe X (2.3 mph) 3. Apollo Sports Bio-Fin Pro C-Series, Atomic Aquatics Smoke on the Water (2.2 mph) Thrust Test Champs 1. Atomic Aquatics Smoke on the Water; Mares Avanti Superchannel (full-foot) (41 pounds) 2. Apollo Sports Bio-Fin Pro C-Series; Mares Avanti Excel; Oceanic Caribe X (40 pounds) 3. Aeris Mako; Mares Quattro Excel; Cressi-sub Reaction (38 pounds) Slalom Course Champs 1. Mares Avanti Superchannel (full-foot) (55 seconds) 2. Oceanic Caribe X (59 seconds) 3. Mares Avanti Excel (62 seconds)

The Mako was the surprise hit in this year's test. Don't let the generic look fool you—this fin has a slightly wider blade, flexible center channel, high-performance vents and snappy rails that create an efficient, powerful kicker that scored near the top of every objective performance test. The Mako put up the second-fastest time in the speed test, the third-highest force in the thrust test and the second-fastest time through the slalom course. On the reef, test divers gave it high marks in every ergonomie category, but they particularly liked the fin's quick acceleration and effortless...

Atomic Aquatics This impressive new fin gets its name from the smoky transparent panels on its long split blades. They are a bit more flexible than previ- SLALOM (IN SEC.) ous versions of the Atomic Splitfin, but still generated the highest thrust measurement of all the fins in this review. The Smoke on the Water fins also tied for the fastest speed score among open-heel fins and slashed through the slalom course with a top-three performance. In ergonomie tests, it was one of only two open-heel fins to earn an Excellent rating from test divers for Acceleration, and it also earned the...

Oceanic Viper Mares Avanti The Avanti Superchannel is brand-new this year and comes with a soft center channel for flex and efficiency and a full rubber foot pocket upper for comfort. It also sports the new ABS Plus buckle system, and in our series of tests, it kicked some serious bottom time. The blade has a smooth flex that turned in speed perfor- mance almost as fast as the top open-heel fins in this review. It produced average thrust and snaked through the slalom course in good time, but what test divers noticed was its stability. Divers who prefer a stiffer feel really liked this fin,...

Mares poured a lot of technology into this fin SPEED ON MPH) using a blend of thermoplastic rubber and 32 technopolymers in their Super Channel Thrust THRUST (IN LBS.) (a soft center that channels water efficiency), 77 Optimizing Pivot Blade (OPB), and Whale Tail SLALOM (IN SEC.) blade-integrated foot pocket, which transfers power directly from your foot to the fin. All we can say is that it works. In the objective tests, this fin racked up speed and thrust measurements better than most of the fins in this review, and its time on the slalom course was a respectable 62 seconds. This fin was...

Test Divers ERGONOMIC CHART EXPLANATIONS MODERATELY IMPORTANT MOST IMPORTANT Fit & Comfort: Of foot pocket. Alternate Kicks: Ease and effectiveness of frog and dolphin Power vs. Stress: The perception of power produced vs. effort required. Stability: How much kicks. Surface Swim: Both face-down and while swimming on the back. the fins wobble, slice from side to side or hit each other during the kick cycle. Maneuver- CONVENIENCE ELEMENTS ability: The ease of turning, as well as getting in and out of tight places using fin power; Donning/doffing: Prior to the dive, after the dive. Adjusting...