Nick Pelios
Freediver, Creator
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Nick Pelios
Freediver, Creator
Aloha divers, this is Connor from Kona Freedivers and we're here to take a look at the difference between carbon blades and fiberglass blades. So, there are a lot of questions I get in the shop about these, people are kind of wondering what they should go for, and what the differences are, and we'll go over that a little bit today. Let's see what we can find out.
Fin blades are used to put in pockets, for things like freediving and spearfishing - i actually use mine for everything. I have to have my long fins on or else i'll feel lost in the water. I use them for just snorkeling, i use them for scuba, so i use them for a lot of different things, and i feel like they're the most efficient option. There's a few reasons why i wouldn't use them for certain things, but they're really random - diving caves or wrecks i may not want to use long fins, but for everything else, these things I feel are the most efficient fins out there.
We've got a few different options - plastic is one of them. Now, the reason that I don't generally go with plastic is that for the cost of them, it's not going to get you the efficiency you want. They're better than a short fin, they're better than no fins, and if you're going to go with something, at least go with a plastic longfin, but I would suggest going up a little bit, spending a little bit more money and getting something like fiberglass ones. The reason that fiberglass is so good is, for one, that it's just the best bang for your buck. These particular fins are made in Estonia, and one cool thing with these ones is the costs - i mean they're just absolutely ridiculously inexpensive for what you're getting out of it. I would suggest going with something like that if you're not really sure you want to get into it really hardcore, if you're not, you know, just going out there to play around, you're not really going to be doing a whole lot, not doing
deep dives or freediving, trying to go up in the freediving skills. So these ones are good for the cost.
And what I always tell people in the shop is, if you've gone freediving and you haven't made any purchases, but you fall in love with it and you want to do it way more, don't make your first purchase a plastic fin. If you know you're going to love it, and you're going to use them a lot, you might as well buy either a fiberglass fin or a high-quality carbon, or even a low-quality carbon. If you know you're going to be into it, definitely go with a higher-end blade.
You may be asking "why would I want to spend twice or three times the amount of money on a carbon rather than a fiberglass"? Well, there are big jumps between blades so when it comes to performance. Plastic blades start out like now are better than no fins, they're better than short fins. From plastic to fiberglass is a dramatic jump. Plastics have a memory so when you kick and you start to turn, the fin does not follow through, it just is lazy and doesn't really want to get back to straight. With a fiberglass and carbon, it doesn't have a memory, so what happens is it wants to get back to that straight profile as quickly as possible, and so it gives you a lot more thrust with less effort. So that's kind of what the whole point of freediving is - you want to use as little oxygen as possible, to do as much as possible. So the fiberglass is a pretty big jump from plastics, and then you've got a bigger jump - and that you can see that in price too - there's a jump from the fiberglass to the really nice carbons. And there are some lower-end carbons but the problem with lowering the cost of carbons is that carbons cost a lot to be made. So, Alchemy for example, you know they cost a little bit more, but they're really well made. So, if you're really into it, you want to go up and you know you're going to be in the deeper freediver zone, or you really want to get into spearfishing, I suggest you get a carbon.
I get asked a lot about durability, that's something that people always ask. So as far as durability goes I've had a lot of good luck with most of these fins. I've used carbons, I've used fiberglass, I've never really had durability issues with them. Sometimes there are durability issues with the lower-end stuff. Some people think carbon's going to be more fragile than fiberglass, which isn't necessarily the case. I actually feel that good-quality carbons are going to be more durable than fiberglass, but that's not to say fiberglass is not durable. It's just that carbon will take a lot more a lot more abuse and still keep kicking.
Compared to plastic, fiberglass is going to be quite a bit higher in efficiency. It's doing a lot more work for you. The carbons, that's kind of the epitome of efficiency. They're built to do the work for you, so you're not using as much energy and oxygen. And, for example, this particular blade is an Alchemy. These are made in Greece, they are really well-made fins, we've done a lot of these in the shop. If you're gonna spend that kind of money go to carbon. I mean, if you're there's no reason to spend 300-400 on fiberglass blades when you can get a really good fiberglass blade for under 120. If you're gonna go high-end, go with a manufacturer that is well-known, and that's been around. Alchemy, they've been around forever.