Early inventors, including Leonardo da Vinci and Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, toyed with the concept of swimfins, taking their inspiration from ducks' feet.

[5] Benjamin Franklin made a pair of early swimfins (for hands) when he was a young boy living in Boston, Massachusetts near the Charles River; they were two thin pieces of wood, about the shape of an artist's palette, which allowed him to move faster than he usually did in the water.

In 1914 Corlieu made a practical demonstration of his first prototype for a group of navy officers, Yves le Prieur among them[1] who, years later in 1926, invented an early model of scuba set.

[1] After struggling for years, even producing his fins in his own flat in Paris, Louis de Corlieu finally started mass production of his invention in France in 1939.

During the years after World War II had ended, De Corlieu spent time and efforts struggling in civil procedures, suing others for patent infringement.

[8] In Britain, Dunlop made frogman's fins for World War II, but after the war saw no market for them in peacetime, and, after the first supply of war-surplus frogman's kit was used up, the British public had no access to swimfins (except for home-made attempts such as gluing marine plywood to plimsolls), until Oscar Gugen began importing swimfins and swimming goggles from France.

A distinctive feature of Cressi's continuing Rondine full-foot fin line is the embossed outline of the bird on the foot pockets and the blades.

As secretary of The Amphibians, (Howitt) wrote to the Dunlop Rubber Company in February 1949, as they had made the naval frogmen's fins during the war.

Scuba divers need large wide fins to overcome the water resistance caused by their diving equipment, and short enough to allow acceptable maneuvering.

Ocean swimmers, bodysurfers, and lifeguards favour smaller designs that stay on their feet when moving through large surf and that make walking on the beach less awkward.

A monofin is typically used in finswimming and free-diving and it consists of a single fin blade attached to twin foot pockets for both the diver's feet.

The diver's muscle power and swimming style, and the type of activity the fins are used for, determine the choice of size, stiffness, and materials.

[citation needed] Paddle fins have simple plastic, composite, or rubber blades that work as extensions of the feet while kicking.

Some paddle fins have channels and grooves claimed to improve power and efficiency though it has been shown that the desired effect does not usually occur.

The manufacturers claim that split fins operate similarly to a propeller, by creating lift forces to move the swimmer forwards.

[25] The claim is that water flowing toward the center of the fin's "paddle" portion also gains speed as it focuses, creating a "suction" force.

These are very similar to paddle fins, except they are far longer, and designed to work with slow stiff-legged kicks that are claimed to conserve oxygen and energy.

The vast majority are made in the "full-foot" design with very rigid footpockets, which serves to reduce weight and maximize power transfer from the leg into the fin.

[33] Training fins, as they are now called, continue to be popular tools in an aquatic athlete's swimbag well into the new millennium, for recreational reasons as well as skill-building purposes.

Some fins designed for surf use have integral straps which can neither be replaced nor adjusted, but are simple and have no projections which can snag or scratch the swimmer's legs.

[39][clarification needed] Experimental work suggests that larger fin blades are more efficient in converting diver effort to thrust, and are more economical in breathing gas for similar propulsive effect.