- John Wagner
Born in 1957 in San Diego, CA
Designed, invented, and patented the dual
directional water channeling system dive fin and
the Universal dive fin strap.
I have always been fascinated with the ocean on
the surface and below and with the people
around the world who make underwater
exploration possible. I am also an avid water-
going person. I started free diving and
bodysurfing in the early 1970s. Throughout my
years of bodysurfing, I have bodysurfed places
like the Wedge in Newport Beach, California,
Pipeline in Hawaii, Puerto Escondido – known
as the Mexican Pipeline, and Boomer in La Jolla,
California. I have free dived along the La Jolla
and Point Loma coastline, Florida, Hawaii, and
Northern California.
I did my first tank dive with some friends in the 1970s with no formal training, I quickly realized
that diving can be very fun and exhilarating and is not a sport to be taken lightly. But with the
proper training, it can be very enjoyable.
Looking for a way to enhance my swimming, I started working on a new fin design. With the
goal in mind to design a fin that would give me more power, greater agility, and comfort and
allow me to spend hours in the water without getting fatigued. I started researching and
studying earlier fin testing and research that was done by Glen Egstrom, professor of
Kinesiology at UCLA, Donna Nawrocki who used the largest number of test subjects in 1979,
Mekjavic who also did testing in 1986, and later research done by David Pendergast, Marcy
Teesco, Donna Nawrocki and Nadine Fisher of the Center for Research in Special
Environments, Department of Physiology, School of Medicine and Biomedial Sciences at the
State University of New York at Buffalo and partial funded by the United States Navy, Office of
Navel Research. Gathering information from these earlier fin studies based on blade surface
area, flexibility, vented versus non-vented fin designs, etc., I started creating my first
prototypes and began testing them in the early 1990s. I filed my first patent in 1993. I then
passed the fins around to different divers of varying backgrounds, ages, and gender, as well
as to swimmers. This ranged from Navy Seals, Lifeguards, Coast Guard Rescue swimmers,
as well as beginners and avid divers and instructors.
Since then, the fin has gone through an evolutionary process of perfecting the design by
making it lighter, faster, more responsive, and with minimal effort. The challenge was to put
all this into a lightweight compact fin design. Since then the dual water channeling system
has proven to stabilize the fin blade making a shorter fin more efficient by properly channeling
the water over the blade surface and focusing the thrust. Since then, the patented dual-
directional water channeling system has received numerous awards such as the Testers’
Choice Award from Scuba Diving Magazine, write-ups in Popular Science Magazine, Asian
Diver Magazine, Dive Trainer Magazine, Sports Diver Magazine, and Dive Newswire, etc. It
was chosen to be exhibited at the Inventors’ Expo sponsored by the U.S. Patent Office at
Disney World’s Epcot Center. Also, it has received numerous testimonial letters from divers
of all types and varying backgrounds.
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| BUS: 619.461.1328 FAX: 619.461.1347 |
| APS Mantaray Dive Fins Advanced-Aqua Propulsion System Dual Directional Water Channeling |