The First Ever (soon to be) Published Study on Mermaid Tail Swimming and Tails

[AniaR]

This is fascinating! I'm just curious would the drag you are experiencing from your tail be caused mostly by water getting inside your tail and not draining out quickly enough? Will they be testing that aspect of drag (how quickly water can pass through the tail) as I imagine any insights into improvement in that area could be quite valuable in terms of improving drag performance and thus mer swimming speed.

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I can't say for sure as we are still testing and they are collecting the data and interpretating it, not me. But I personally feel from experience the drag comes from the fluke being too bouyant. My tail with drainage seems to drag more than even bigger flukes ( but less silicone due to shape/ mono fin) without drainage. The more we test the more I feel it isn't one trait ( eg drainage, fluke, monofin) but rather specific combinations. However these are not official study findings. Just totally my opinion.

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[Mermaid Jaffa]

Are you going to test it with fabric tails too?

[AniaR]

Are you going to test it with fabric tails too?

Nope. As I've said previously, We are just testing merbellas tails that we own as a small sample size for now. This is an engineering study and the focus is on creating an end product that will help them improve their tails and possible improve monofins for mermaids. Just like when Cars do studies on their own brand in order to improve their own product.

We can't possibly take on a study of all tails/monofins. This one is giant enough! lol.

[Mermaid Jaffa]

Okie dokie. Good luck with it! Hope to have all positive outcomes. The fish world in Australia is pretty sad atm. Only certain pools allow them now. Luckily, the two pools nearest to me are okay with it.

[Merman Andrew]

Nope. As I've said previously, We are just testing merbellas tails that we own as a small sample size for now. This is an engineering study and the focus is on creating an end product that will help them improve their tails and possible improve monofins for mermaids. Just like when Cars do studies on their own brand in order to improve their own product.

We can't possibly take on a study of all tails/monofins. This one is giant enough! lol.

So is it Merbella who are commissioning the study?

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[AniaR]

So is it Merbella who are commissioning the study?

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Nope, we were approached by the engineers and worked out an agreement between us, merbellas, and them

[AniaR]

It took a while but the video of the behind the scenes of our research study is online now. A few things to keep in mind before commenting:

1. We are their clients, not scientists nor engineers. I am not in control of the study, we are participating it and while we have our goals, the parameters are determined by them.

2. These are just SMALL CLIPS of one SINGLE DAY of information gathering. They do not represent the entire study. You are only seeing a small portion of it.

3. No, we are not studying all the mermaid tails/s fins out there. Our study is dealing with specifically Merbella Studios, and specifically the finis monofins.

4. You can ask a million questions but I am likely not at liberty to answer most of them. I put this online mainly for your enjoyment and curiosity sake. I think it's ground breaking to have mermaiding and science come together, but as all trailblazers this is just a first pass at things. Our goal is to continue to legitimize mermaid work, hopefully calm some fears over monofins, and in the end help Merbella's improve their product and possible have improvements for all monofin wearing mermaids.

[Mermaid Danielle]

Raina, this is so cool! Thanks for sharing the video!

[Dolphin Man]

Please keep us apprised. Do you have some sense of how long the study would take?

[AniaR]

it's a year long study

[Merman Andrew]

Just watched it! That was a really awesome doco, thanks so much for sharing Raina!!! I really liked the part where the engineer wanted to try on one of your tails Looking forward to more updates on this study in future!

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[AniaR]

He was a good sport!

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[Mermaid Lorelei]

Awesome behind the scenes! Random question though... does the duct tape used to hold the accelerometer in place affect the tails?

[AniaR]

Awesome behind the scenes! Random question though... does the duct tape used to hold the accelerometer in place affect the tails?

it actually doesnt even STICK to the tails, it was held on by layering and sticking to itself. I did a patch test all worried it would hurt the tail and it wouldnt stick and I was like, "well then."

[PearlieMae]

What gets me is how silicone will render any kind of tape UNsticky!

[Mermaid Lorelei]

Huh, nifty! I mean, I know pretty much nothing sticks to silicone, but that's just cool!

[AniaR]

Latest pictures to check out. They may not make total sense til I get a chance to edit the next video! (can anyone say, hands free monofins off and on??? Even while underwater?)






























































I took much more video than photos this time around so it'll take a little bit~

[AniaR]

I am so behind on this because I have no time to sit down and clean up photos or edit video, but here's a few things from our second prototype and more testing

The water was really warm and we had rescue divers in the water with us who kept stirring up bubbles -_- so between the white caused from the warm and people making bubbles all the photos and footage came out kinda white and grainy











Then we also got an artsy shot for a contest




I'll try and update this soon! The study was on TV briefly but I didn't know it happened until after the fact and couldn't track down the clip >.>

[Mermaid Jaffa]

Raina, did you try the sideways swimming? When I do sideways swimming with arms in front, it feels like I'm going a little bit faster. I curve the whole body like the way I've watched Misty Hyman does in her demonstration video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFnf2WRNYt4

Can you even move like that, like with more undulation in a silicone tail? Or does it always have to be straight and slow swimming? Btw, this isn't a link, I don't know how to get rid of it!!!

[AniaR]

Yeah I do sideways swimming in my monofin and tails all the time. I have some video and we did it with the acceloremtres too so I should actually know at some point if it changes speed!