Hammering it out

I too love my snorkel. In my case it's new to my swim bag. I have not noticed my kick change but do feel I concentrate on both the catch and pull phase much more. Do you use a nose clip? I found this helped big time on my turns.

yes I use a nose clip. I like doing flip turns and that is the only way to do them with the snorkle, aleast for me.

It took me a while to figure out how to do flip turns with snorkel and no nose clip, but can now do it well.

I took advice from one of Ande's threads and now do the majority of my kicking with the snorkel and kickboard; it seems to simulate higher body position (like in a race with my Yingfa suit on) and helps me to tweak my kick ever so slightly to be more powerful and efficient as opposed to plain old kicking with the board.

I am glad that you find the snorkel helpful for you, and hope that will continue.

I got a snorkel about a six months ago where over time I was able to do flip turns with the snorkel and then swim the main sets using a snorkel with hard effort. It really does help to sustain quality body position, front end stroke execution, and strong kicking. In addition I find the snorkel very useful for swimming the breast and fly for kicking, drills, sculling, and the full strokes. In butterfly, after some practice I was able to do the fly with two kick body undulation without submerging the snorkel.

Now my snorkel leaks somewhat at the very bottom below the mouthpiece, as I cannot determine a simple fix, I will order a new one soon. It gets tiresome to have it slowly fill up with water interfering with breathing, and then have empty out every 200-300 yards.

Originally Posted by fdtotten

Now my snorkel leaks somewhat at the very bottom below the mouthpiece, as I cannot determine a simple fix

Have you tried wrapping it with teflon tape?

That stinks that it developed a leak so quickly. I've had mine for at least five years and it's still going strong.

Originally Posted by knelson

Have you tried wrapping it with teflon tape?

That stinks that it developed a leak so quickly. I've had mine for at least five years and it's still going strong.

Thanks, I will give that a try. Five years - that is terrific! Good job taking care of it.

Sometimes when I take that black stopper piece out and refit it back in, it is good for awhile, but the leaking slowly rebuilds. I was thinking perhaps there is a higher Finis snorkel model that is of better quality. I thought this one the better all-around snorkel, and at first it worked very well, and then by the time I can really use it, I get the leaking problem.

Originally Posted by fdtotten

Thanks, I will give that a try. Five years - that is terrific! Good job taking care of it.

Sometimes when I take that black stopper piece out and refit it back in, it is good for awhile, but the leaking slowly rebuilds. I was thinking perhaps there is a higher Finis snorkel model that is of better quality. I thought this one the better all-around snorkel, and at first it worked very well, and then by the time I can really use it, I get the leaking problem.

It's possible that the purge valve (the black stopper piece) has gone. You can get replacements for that:
http://www.finisinc.com/equipment/te...lve-black.html

I moved to the Y-lon snorkle because it doesn't have the valve the Finis snorkle does. I had the same leakage problem on the Finis.

But even now my Y-lon snorkle leaks some. sometimes I'll use gorilla tape to keep the mouth piece from leaking or I will tie something around the mouth piece to make it fit tighter to the body of the snorkle.

Originally Posted by fdtotten

Sometimes when I take that black stopper piece out and refit it back in, it is good for awhile, but the leaking slowly rebuilds.

I didn't know there was a "black stopper piece" that was removable. Maybe that's why I've had good luck with mine all these years!

Originally Posted by knelson

I didn't know there was a "black stopper piece" that was removable. Maybe that's why I've had good luck with mine all these years!

Originally Posted by Donna

I moved to the Y-lon snorkle because it doesn't have the valve the Finis snorkle does. I had the same leakage problem on the Finis. But even now my Y-lon snorkle leaks some. sometimes I'll use gorilla tape to keep the mouth piece from leaking or I will tie something around the mouth piece to make it fit tighter to the body of the snorkle.

Originally Posted by jbs

It's possible that the purge valve (the black stopper piece) has gone. You can get replacements for that:
http://www.finisinc.com/equipment/te...lve-black.html

I want to thank you for this discussion and help. I ordered a new purge valve ($2) and also a new headpiece, $12 (since that was broken as well) and now my finis snorkel is performing well again. Still learning how to do a long underwater streamline from the freestyle flip turn off the walls at sub 30 pace without pushing the snorkel out of place, but otherwise all is good at the moment.