Nautilus has been making noise lately to get their NS "carbon" fins attention Nautilus NS Series Carbon Blades and Pockets New Batch!!! - Spearboard Spearfishing Community At an affordable $199.99 they appear attractive to those looking to upgrade to their first carbon blades.
It's important that divers know what they're buying, especially when there's an attempted deception. Nautilus blades are Leader blades LeaderFins.com with a different sticker. This in itself wouldn't be a big deal, rebranding is normal in the industry. The foul as I see it is that along side the "NS" blades, Nautilus is selling the exact same blades at the lower price of $175 correctly labeled as Leader Nautilus Spearfishing – Miami Dive Shop » LeaderFins Carbon Steriofins Wave Blades Fins. The only reason I see for this is an attempt to confuse a potential buyer into thinking that the NS fins are more expensive and better than the Leader fins, in reality they are one and the same.
Because Speardiver carbon blades are more expensive Speardiver carbon fins roll call I'm often faced with the same questions from guys who know about the Nautilus blades; why are Speardiver carbon blades more expensive? How are they better than the Nautilus blades? So I decided to post the answers in this thread.
The cost of Leader / Nautilus carbon blades is cheaper than any other blades on the market period. You don't need to simply believe me, go to LeaderFins.com and see for yourself. The retail price of the carbon blades is 90 euro. The low retail cost reflects lower production costs, which is in part due to low labor costs (the blades are made in Estonia), as well as materials and production process.
Leader fiberglass blades are not even worth talking about, they are so slow/have no snap, little if at all better than good plastic long fins. Leader carbon blades are fiberglass blades with two layers of carbon fiber, one on the top surface and one on the bottom surface. This makes Leader blades have the outward appearance of a carbon blade, and at the same time be durable but heavier and slow/with little snap/less reactive as compared to quality carbon fins. For those who don't know it's the lightness and tendency of the carbon blade to very quickly snap back to straight after being flexed, that makes the performance difference. Someone who has no experience with carbon blades, and is given the opportunity to flex and release one kind of blade alongside another, will immediately become aware of the difference.
Another important aspect of the blades is rails. Rails are the system which secures the blade in foot pockets. For an explanation of rails see this thread Fin blade rails, water channeling and tendon rails explanation Leader / NS blades have an inferior rail system with water channeling rails running the length of the blade. Then cutting down the height of the water channeling rails in the area where the foot pocket tendons grip. The resulting small rails appear like they would do the job of tendon rails, but in reality because they're not specifically designed for this purpose the rails are too thick to fit in the tendon slot properly. This results in poor grip of the foot pocket tendons over the blade, and the probability of the blade popping out of the tendons during a powerful fin stroke.
All that said, Leader offers decent entry level blades in their "carbon" blades, which are definitely superior to any plastic longfins. As such I decided to add them to the Spearfishing Store product line, with improvement in some aspects and no misinformation.
Stiffeness: Medium only. Soft from Leader are very slow and provide poor propulsion. Hard are stiff like boards.
Color: Conventional carbon pattern only. The new Algae camo carbon blades include a layer of the colored stuff which is pretty but slows down an already slower blade.
Rails: Original Leader water channeling rails, with Speardiver foot pocket rails installed to match exactly the length of the tendons for the foot pocket you are using.
Logo: Leader logo, no logo, a mermaid, whatever you want. Except Speardiver logo
Price: $160
Caveat: Don't ask me any more questions about these blades.