Performance, comfort and customization
The new born fins by Cetma are the top of the line Lotus Carbon, an extremely high level product, which puts together high end performance with good comfort. Thought for freediving, be it Indoor or Outdoor, the Cetma Lotus Carbon have all the elements for the best performance, united to great comfort and the possibility to build the fin around the freediver. The downside? You need to learn to use them at best…
Why these new fins?
With the amazing Cetma Taras fins being the best possible offer focused on performance, World Champions in all disciplines of Indoor and Outdoor apnea, Women and Men, why has Cetma designed and launched the new Lotus Carbon? Because the Lotus Carbon keep the good performance qualities of the Taras, but add the possibility to adjust a number of elements to build the fin around the diver, together with increased comfort. In fact, the dismountable footpocket to blade connection opens to solutions such as carbon blades with different stiffness and angle, and even the use of polymer blades. Additionally, the Lotus footpocket is more comfortable than the one of the Taras, and permits the use of the Lotus Carbon also during long training sessions. Let’s see why.
Lotus footpocket
Material
When it comes to finding the best performance in freediving you need to utilize natural rubber footpockets, just as the Lotus and the Taras. Such material can return almost all the elastic energy. This characteristic brings to a footpocket actively functioning together with the blade, heavily improving performance. More expensive and difficult to handle in the manufacturing phase compared to synthetic rubber, the natural rubber is perfect for freediving, while the second is best for spearfishing.
The great plus of the Cetma solution is that the Italian company has managed to produce natural rubber footpockets using moulds. This determines a much more constant result, with two advantages. On one side the footpocket offered to the customer has more constant performance, on the other, testing and developing is based on a product that does not change from one piece to the other.
Design
As said, the Lotus footpockets are in natural rubber, but differ from other solutions such as the more “extreme” ones of the Taras. The latter come from the concept of monofins, and have a preset angle as they work with flat blades. This design brings a number of advantages, but also reduces comfort and limits the use of the Taras to the single performance. With the Lotus footpockets instead, the freediver can use a high level natural rubber footpocket with a more comfortable design. This means also training can be done with the Lotus Carbon, as they can be worn for hours without problems. Additionally, the Lotus footpocket is more compact, and so lighter. The lateral rails are almost absent to leave all the action to the blade. Both the Taras and the Lotus footpockets are designed with an open heel solution.
Blade connection
The connection between the Lotus footpocket and the blade is obtained with screws. This apparently is a less evolute solution compared to the Taras, where footpocket and blade are glued together. Still, the connection of the Lotus gives great freedom of changing the blade, eventually from a harder one used to make muscles during training, to a softer one for the day of the performance. Not only, if you really want to keep your carbon blades for the very special moments such as competitions, or key tests, then you also have the opportunity to mount the Lotus polymer blade on your Lotus footpocket. Remember though: the Lotus footpocket is only sold with the Lotus Carbon fins, while the Lotus polymer fins are offered with the S-Wing footpocket, a totally different solution.
Blade
The 100% carbon fibre blade of the Cetma Lotus Carbon utilizes all the know how and top technology by the Italian company. One year of testing has been carried out to design a blade which could work at best with the new natural rubber Lotus footpocket. The length of the blade, measured by Apneapassion starting from the curvature in front of the foot pocket, is equal to 59 cm centrally and 62 cm laterally, considering the concave terminal profile. The width between the two water rails is 18.5 cm.
Two angles
In the Cetma Taras the angle between foot and blade is obtained giving a curvature to the footpocket itself, constricting the foot to keep a position which si not natural. Differently to this, on the Cetma Lotus Carbon the angle is given by the design of the blade. This is a great advantage because it gives the opportunity to have blades of different angles. In particular Cetma proposes the 21°, used by a reduced number of athletes with hyperextended feet, and 26°, used by 90% of the athletes. Due to the open heel design of the Lotus footpocket, Michele Giurgola tells us that the real angle can be considered indicatively equal to additional 5°, so respectively 26° and 31°.
Materials and stiffness
The amazing know how and research by Cetma permits the company to design extremely sophisticated blades. For example, Cetma informs us that the material is an Episodic Prepreg Hot Melt carbon fibre, developed to specifications by Cetma Composites. Additionally, to control the flexion of the blade in each direction and area, Cetma works on various key aspects: weight, design and orientation of the carbon fiber, and stratification of the layers. The design of the blade is so advanced that the thickness does not change only along the blade, but also in the transversal direction. At the upper surface at beginning of the blade some curved lines, and from mid blade to the tip some straights lines, appear from the light reflexes to show the evolved variable thickness design of the Cetma Lotus Carbon fins blades.
As a plus compared to the Taras, the blades of the Lotus Carbon are offered in three different stiffnesses, XS, S and M, combined with the two angles, as follows:
| XS | S | M | |
| 21° | no | yes | yes |
| 26° | yes | yes | yes |
This range of blades permits, as said before, to build the Cetma Lotus Carbon fins around the physical and technical needs of the freediver. A key plus, this one, that is not possible with the Cetma Taras.
The available shoe sizes are: 35-36, 37-38, 39-40, 41-42, 43-44.
Water Rails
Even on the Water Rails front, nothing is left to chance, with a solution used on all Cetma carbon blades. The material of the Water Rails is synthetic rubber. The height of the Water Rails is variable, with a value starting from 8 mm and reaching 25 mm (Apneapassion measurement). The thinner part evidently avoids as much as possible any interaction with the flexion of the blade. The taller section, towards the tip of the blade, instead works at best to channel the water there where it is more important. Such a design of the water rails, obtained with moulds, is a much more advanced and complex design compared to the constant section ones obtained by simple extrusion. The colors of the logo and the Water Rails can be a choice of white or gold, the latter being very beautiful.
How they work
So, finally, which are the differences between these two amazing fins by Cetma, Taras and Lotus Carbon? The Taras indeed have shown unbeatable performance worldwide, both in Indoor and Outdoor apnea competitions. One aspect which is evident is that the Taras footpocket practically forces the athlete to the correct finning technique. Vice versa, the Lotus Carbon to not have this kind of effect to the finning action of the freediver. The correct finning technique will have to come from the skills and capacities of the athlete. For such reason, the Lotus Carbon are excellent for expert and demanding freedivers, but also for less experienced ones, who want to work on their finning technique to be able to reach the best performance with these fins.
Performance wise, tests have been done at Y-40 by Michele Giurgola and Antonio Mogavero, both athletes who do not need a presentation. Two hours of dives exchanging between them the Lotus Carbon and Taras fins and trying to understand exactly which were the differences. The results have been that the performance of the Lotus Carbon and Taras are very very similar.
The only difference is the restart from the bottom, where the Taras have a slightly better performance, probably due to the action of the Taras footpocket in such conditions. This feeling has been confirmed by Giurgola as more evident the deeper you go, as of course you are then more negative. On the other hand, as already said, the Lotus Carbon could even work better for some freedivers, as they will be able to set exactly the angle and stiffness of the blade, while the Taras offer one single option for both parameters.
