Carbon Fiber Versus Fiber Glass Fins Review | Kona Freedivers Reviews 

It's all your fault for making good fins 😠

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Our pleasure! Feel free to give us a call if you have any more questions.

We used to carry Molchanovs but they kept breaking all of the time. They are probably better now, but when they wouldn't cover the warranty we dropped them.

Thanks Del!

You should be okay if you stick with their standard angle blades (not over 29 degrees). Footpockets are usually pretty forgiving when it comes to angle.

As far as we can tell the fins are constructed the same weather long or short so shorter fins will be much stiffer than longer fins because they don't include the most flexible end part. So, likely you will want the same stiffness. Also you must take into account the type of swimming you will be doing. Since in the pool you will be moving the same speed you won't want a great amount of power. Probably best to stick with softer fins. The carbon do tend to be quite soft with the softs being very soft compared to other brands.

There are so many different fin brands in this world with new ones coming and going. We've sold hundreds of leaderfins and alchemy's at this point. We've occasionally tried other brands but nothing matches the durability and price to performance of these two brands. So you can try some new brand, but we can't vouch for them. What makes you consider this brand over the others?

Do you fit the c400 or 300 footpockets?

@@konafreediversreviews1175 c400, the thing is... I don't have a boat, so I go from the beach... I always hunt on the rocks, so i need a nice pair of fins... Do you think they are "bulletproof"?? Thx

Not really a jump. You get what you pay for.

Alchemy all the way. They are more durable and sized more appropriately. The s-line alchemy's are designed for spearfishing so that's probably your best bet.

I would say dive R fibre glass fins in my opinion I had 2 pairs of alchemy one pair of leader fin carbons and and one pair of c4 carbons all broke while diving I think it’s because the glue came out and put stress on the fins but I’ve never seen or heard of a dive r breaking so that’s something to consider

The carbon is a bit better because it uses carbon fibers instead of fiberglass. So they will last through more kick cycles and be lighter as well.

We have not tried them. They seem more expensive and the alchemy are already pretty great. Alchemy has been around a long time and we've sold a lot so we know they are durable and they are a good stiffness level. What is making you consider the carbonio's? Just from what we see of them they look like they have a fair amount of resin on them. This is a common issue and makes fins too stiff. Based on this video (link below) they appear too stiff for him and he's using the medium stiffness (his body is rotating and he has pigeon toe). This is common as most carbon blades are too stiff. The challenge is in using the right amount of carbon and the least amount of resin possible without breaking. The molchanovs are a good stiffness level and tend to be much less stiff in general and even less stiff than the alchemy's but they break a lot. We sold them for a little while and Molchanov's wouldn't cover them under warranty so we stopped carrying them. Definitely would NOT recoommend molchanovs. There's a reason we sell achemy's. We have sold many hundreds of carbon blades at this point and there's nothing wrong with the alchemy's so why try to fix what's not broken? ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-EPE7UHG2REs.htmlsi=PVxVN0tvGwjYfCLl

I got an update from my fin installation Guru (Chris Funada @moistmaninnis). He says they are fine. They only work with pathos and proprietary footpockets so that's a huge red flag out of the gete.

@@konafreediversreviews1175 thank you for your answer. GFT looks great as does Alchemy. I ordered them a few weeks ago and expect them to arrive soon. I asked that question because I was hesitating between Alchemy and GFT...so I went to GFT...time will tell. Thanks

Pure carbon is just that. Carbon fiber is a fiberglass layer sandwiched between two carbon fiber layers. We would not recommend this second version since mixing materials has no real benefit and results in a worse performing carbon blade with the lower durability of the fiberglass material.

The difference will vary between fins. Longer fins will require more effort, shorter fins will be less efficient, and wider fins will require more effort. Narrower fins will be less efficient but easier to kick. Two fins that are exactly the same footpockets and blade size/shape side by side will be different in efficiency if they are different materials. Plastic is less efficient because of it's material properties. Often when people try fins they cannot tell the difference from one fin to the other because they equate effort with power but the correct measure is how deep you can dive (distance) using an amount of effort. Think of this metric as 'Efficiency'. If you come up from a dive with similar plastics versus carbon blades you will do the same dive using less effort with the carbon blades. That is to say they are more 'efficient'. This is the way to think about freediving fins. How far can you go on one breath. Keep in mind some carbon blades are too stiff. This will result in much effort and inefficient kicking becasue the blade will tilt as a result of the foot tilting from lack of power and muscle fatigue. This allows water to spill over the side of the blade. We call this effect pigeon toe. it is super common as most fins are too stiff for the user (especially plastics). We see it all the time in our freediving courses. Does this help explain things a bit better John?

Not at all .I'm 74 I have been freediving and spearfishing for 50 years.you guys are way less experienced and just trying to pretend you know everything. Your channel is a good example of what's wrong with social media.

​@@johnboutwell3251I agree with you fully, some brands are always exposed even when there is better ones out there they always use alchemy cetma or leaderfins

Have you been good this year? Perhaps Santa will put you on the nice list 😅

Sorry Akon!

Plastic fins wear out. With reapeated use the plastic looses it's ability to resist bending and can develop a weak point. Fiberglass is superior to plastic in every way.

When you leave a fin sitting up against a wall, a plastic one wil bend and deform. When you pick it up to use it the fin will retain this deformed shape. It has a 'short-term-memory'. Even when you kick it this happens to a small degree. If you do the same with a fibnerglass or carbon blade it will return to it's original shape because it has no 'memory' of where is was recently. It has 'amnesia'

Cool. Of the 5,763 different freediving blades available on the market which one is your favorite and why? Also what is your authority on the topic? How many have you sold to the public and how many came back broken as a percentage of those you've sold?

You didn't answer!