Danger said: I like the idea, but I think that's there's a lot more engineering involved. For one thing, the flaps when open would cause a lot of drag. I don't know what's abovethe flaps, so whether you're dealing more with vacuum suction or surface tension is in question. No doubt you can work something out that works. At least make your flaps hinged at the front so that they act as little ratchets to keep you from sliding back. That will also minimize their drag. The most serious difficulty that I see is in maintaining balance and not just doing a face-plant combined with the splits. Maybe longitudinal strakes? Anyhow, good luck with it.

I am too old to do it now. Idea was many approx 1/2 inch dia. holes in hex pattern about 1.5 inches apart. Each thin flap was much smaller than you are guessing with only a staple at front for ease of construction. (no drag -slight thrust see below)I had computed the "contact time" of each foot/shoe and as recall the verticle impulse gained from only about two square feet of water being forced down one inch was enough to hold me up. The flaps are to let me extract my foot/shoe from this one inch depression with as little effort as possible (and as secondary consideration, shed some of the water that got on top of shoe thru the shoe (as well as off the sides and ends) I was pleased to note that falling water thru the tilted flaps had some (insignificant) forward thrust as it slid down the open flap.You are perhaps correct that the flaps might give some traction for placing a forward force on your body. (Unlike running on dirt, water's coefficient of friction is not much help in this regard.) I was not counting on this, and think it a net disadvantage as makes it harder to lift foot, (speed of impact with water is essential) so I also had several thin vertical fins (about 3 inches deep/tall - I thought would be good) that went transversely on the bottom of each shoe to get some "purchase" on the water for generation of forward force - don't need too much once you get going (Newtons first law and all that stuff.). That is, IMO, it is better to divide the "break suction/ lift foot easy" task for the "get some traction" task and optimize each separately. Your welcome to my design ideas - just let me know if I was right. Good luck to you - summer is soon there in your hemisphere. get busy.(You can swim can't you