On Thu, 8 Jan 2004 19:02:27 -0500, Lee Bell  wrote:

> "David Strike" wrote:
>
> > I already hate myself for responding to the bait - but I will.

Strike, so do I - but I, too, will.
(big snips)

> Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  Every test there's ever been has
> shown modern fins to be more efficient, more comfortable, more everything.
> Jet Fins haven't been copetitive for at least 20 years.

Chapter and verse? Put up or shut up?

Or are you talking "magazine" type critiques? I call those "advertorials".

> Beauty is still in the eye of the beholder.

Yeah, right.

> > (A feature of the jetfin design is that - where they're not already
> > included - spring heels can be easily and securely attached.
>
> That's a matter of chicken and egg.  The spring straps were developed for
> Jet Fins.  It's no surprise that they fit them.  They've also been developed
> for other fins. They do, indeed, appear to be something that came out of
> the cave diving groups that apply well to everybody, well, everybody that
> uses open heel fins.

You seem to be generalising there. Jet Fins are ScubaPro and the
(original) Spring Heel straps are Oceanic. They were NOT developed
together as you suggest.

Nor did Oceanic, at least at that time, have anything pertinent to do
with cave diving.

Also Lee, you should remember that not everyone can, and does, use
closed heel fins as you do. That argument has no relevance here.

I have both and use them as appropriate. My open heel fins seal the
heels with Oceanic Spring Heel Straps and I love them to little bits.

> Who patented them?  Here in S. Florida, they are available for a wide
> variety of fins.

NOT the originals, and that is the point. Whatever they are, they are
either rip offs of a concept (that's been the case for decades now) or
copies since the copyright extinguished.

Oceanic patented them, thus stopping their development (when they
stupidly stopped manufacture) until the time that the patent had run
out (interested people found "work-arounds"). You may, or may not,
have noticed that the slew of these now available only started quite
recently, including Halcyon's version.

It was the usual crass stupidity of a large company that couldn't see
a good thing even when they had it belted into them with large,
spiked, truncheons.

I have the original Oceanics (as I suspect do Strike and Sylvia) and I
love mine to bits (but not the stupid, insular, attitude of the
original inventors of this technology).

The originals, manufactured in a time when manufacturers were possibly
more precise, thorough, the list goes on, are likely to be better than
the more modern offerings, including Halcyon. I defy anyone to make a
precise copy of mine (apart from the suspect securing pins, easily
corrected today) at anywhere near today's equivalent price of what
they were when originally available.

Cheers,

Christian