Any chance of getting one of these suits for my speed board (Apologies in advance as this topic has been discussed in detail adinfinitum) What was the previous consensus regarding this technology for board surfaces i.e. would it work at much faster speeds than swimming?
Ian Thorpe's 400m freestyle and Inge de Bruijn's 100m butterfly world records were two of the oldest in history yet both fell to a couple of European nobodys wearing new generation swim suits.
German Paul Biedermann swam his final 100m 1.75 seconds faster than the great finisher Thorpe ever could.
Remember, this was a record that the sport's greatest ever swimmer Michael Phelps took one attempt at and gave up - he knew it was impossible to beat.
Now a 22-year-old German who has never been ranked inside the world's top 20 before this year is the best ever.
Even he admitted he would not have beaten Thorpe by 0.01s if not for his shiny new Arena X-Glide.
What helps a great white swim so fast is the warmth of their blood/metabolism, same deal for makos.
Actually I think for the suits and shark/seal/dolphin skin you are promoting turbublence and preventing flow seperation, whereas boards and boats would tend to be the opposite. I imagine with the flexible odd shape of the human body that the flow would seperate quite early thus creating alot of drag. Back when I was competing alot of guys were shaving, makes you wonder if maybe they were producing the opposite effect of what they desired.
Also another big factor imo is the warmth that the suits give you.
My understanding is that the material has a core that has airbubbles so it increases the floatation noticably.
