David Wilson
Contributor
I've just chanced upon the Online Spearfishing Museum website with its illustrations and description of six vintage fins, three of them "Duck Fins", at
Spearfishing Museum
One of the other three fins showcased is the Cressi Rondine "V":
which came with two novel features: elongated blades and, probably uniquely in the case of full-foot fins, "anatomical" left-right foot pockets. These fins appear in an early 1970s Cressi catalogue I own, which also featured the only fins in the world with "personalised" sizes, the long-bladed full-foot Rondine L fins with which Jacques Mayol reached 100 metres while freediving. Other fins in the catalogue included the photogenic full-foot Cressi Rondine Extra in light blue or yellow as well as the Jetfin-like full-foot Cressi Rondine S and open-heel Commando USA.
I'm a big fan of Cressi fins of the early 1970s and I enjoyed snorkelling with them, like so many other holidaymakers of the time, in the Mediterranean. I was saddened when the company later began manufacturing fins in plastic instead of natural rubber.
There's an interesting early history of Rondine fins, available in English, at
Rondine Fins | Luigi Ferraro
It can be fascinating to find out about the personalities behind the development of diving gear, in this case Luigi Ferraro, who not only invented the archetypal Rondine full-foot fin with the angled blade, but also the short-lived Caravelle fins of the early 1960s, which was probably the first fin ever to combine a rubber foot pocket with a detachable plastic blade:
Caravelle Fins | Luigi Ferraro
Other great sources of illustrated information about vintage fins are:
The Skin Diving History site at
Skin Diving History Vintage Fins
and Fabio Vitale's illustrated Italian-language monograph at
http://www.hdsitalia.com/articoli/21_attrezzature.pdf
Hope the above is of interest and a change from the topic of regulators!
Spearfishing Museum
One of the other three fins showcased is the Cressi Rondine "V":
which came with two novel features: elongated blades and, probably uniquely in the case of full-foot fins, "anatomical" left-right foot pockets. These fins appear in an early 1970s Cressi catalogue I own, which also featured the only fins in the world with "personalised" sizes, the long-bladed full-foot Rondine L fins with which Jacques Mayol reached 100 metres while freediving. Other fins in the catalogue included the photogenic full-foot Cressi Rondine Extra in light blue or yellow as well as the Jetfin-like full-foot Cressi Rondine S and open-heel Commando USA.
I'm a big fan of Cressi fins of the early 1970s and I enjoyed snorkelling with them, like so many other holidaymakers of the time, in the Mediterranean. I was saddened when the company later began manufacturing fins in plastic instead of natural rubber.
There's an interesting early history of Rondine fins, available in English, at
Rondine Fins | Luigi Ferraro
It can be fascinating to find out about the personalities behind the development of diving gear, in this case Luigi Ferraro, who not only invented the archetypal Rondine full-foot fin with the angled blade, but also the short-lived Caravelle fins of the early 1960s, which was probably the first fin ever to combine a rubber foot pocket with a detachable plastic blade:
Caravelle Fins | Luigi Ferraro
Other great sources of illustrated information about vintage fins are:
The Skin Diving History site at
Skin Diving History Vintage Fins
and Fabio Vitale's illustrated Italian-language monograph at
http://www.hdsitalia.com/articoli/21_attrezzature.pdf
Hope the above is of interest and a change from the topic of regulators!