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Interesting that the CIA conclusion for a device very similar to the article is "Not recommended for operational use due to its discomfort and very slight gain in speed over that of a swimmer equipped with fins."
Yeah I think for most uses I would still prefer fins for their agility. Cool idea though, and we probably haven't seen peak efficiency here.
I swim because I enjoy it, not because I'm trying to get somewhere fast. This seems awkward and I bet you have to use your arms just to counterbalance the twist you'd get on each 'stroke' of the leg. So even though I think it's goofy, I bet I'd like whoever came up with this. Someone who put a ton of effort into building something they thought would be interesting despite a thousand people telling them it's goofy. Go…
> I swim because I enjoy it, not because I'm trying to get somewhere fast. I run because I enjoy it, not because I’m trying to get somewhere fast. But I also bike because I enjoy it, not because I’m trying to get somewhere fast. You seem to assume that because this thing is faster, it must automatically be less enjoyable. That’s not the case for bikes, why should it be the case here? In my opinion it sounds fun, and…
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Anything you choose will be cumbersome because you can't create friction on the water (well...), your ability to move is based on your ability to move water around you. There are solutions that leverage a pair of catamarans and a track system, or a prop. These tend to move very slowly, much slower than a canoe or kayak. The water wheel style systems seem to move faster, but you can just get a pedal kayak and will be…
I've always wondered why nobody has created something that looks like a catamaran with two rowing shells and a road bike on top directly connected to a prop. That would have minimal drag, an optimal body positioning for using leg muscle strength, and would be fun and intuitive to pilot (facing forwards, feels like biking, etc). The obvious downside is that height above water may be an issue so the catamaran would hav…
I wish we could find a good way to bike over the surface of the water. I haven’t seen anything that’s not slow and cumbersome.
Hydrofoil bike: https://manta5.com/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heSPbLHftKw
If it’s powered exclusively by a human then whatever the results, they’re not “superhuman”.
Super == above, over, beyond. If it augments the human's capabilities, it's definitely super!
Something like this expands the envelope of what is, definitionally, the realm of natural human capacity… it pushes what qualifies as superhuman further away, but it doesn’t mean you’ve done something superhuman.
From the looks of the scuba diving video, it looks worse. There's way more leg movement and it looks less controlled (and more likely to damage corals/kick up sand from the bottom) than slow finning.
That said this certainly has its place. There are lots of use cases for wanting to swim more quickly through the water, where precise control is less important and where you aren't right next to fragile life.
If it’s powered exclusively by a human then whatever the results, they’re not “superhuman”.
with my bike I can easily outrun any 100m dasher on the earth.