Rinse, dry, hang: ten minutes that double the life of your gear

Salt water does not damage your gear while you are in it. It damages it in the hour afterwards, in the back of a hot car, in a bag that was never opened. The ten minutes you spend at a tap are the difference between a wetsuit that lasts six seasons and one that lasts two.

The ten minutes that matter

1. Rinse everything in fresh water before it dries. Salt crystallises as the water evaporates, and the crystals cut neoprene, score O-rings and seize zips.
2. Rinse zips with the zip open, then work it a few times.
3. Dry in shade. Our summer sun is harder on neoprene and rubber than the sea is.
4. Pack nothing damp. Mould in a closed bag smells permanent because it is.

Neoprene

Rinse the suit inside and out. Turn it inside out to dry first, because the inside holds the sweat, then turn it back once the lining is dry.

Hang it folded at the waist over a wide bar or a thick hanger. Do not hang a 5 mm suit by the shoulders on a wire hanger for a whole winter. Wet neoprene is heavy, it stretches the shoulders, and they do not come back.

If you dive often, wash it with a capful of wetsuit shampoo once a month. Never a washing machine, never detergent, never a dryer.

Glue small cuts, do not sew them. Neoprene cement on both faces, let it go tacky, press together. A 2 cm tear caught the same week stays 2 cm.

Masks and snorkels

Rinse, dry, and store with nothing pressing on the skirt. A mask left face-down under a weight belt comes out of the bag with a permanent dent in the silicone, and a dented skirt leaks.

Keep them out of sunlight. UV turns clear silicone yellow and stiff, and stiff silicone stops sealing.

Fins

Rinse the foot pockets, especially inside, where sand collects and grinds. Store them flat or standing on the heels, never leaning with weight on the blade tips, and never in a car boot in August. Plastic blades take a set if you store them bent, and they never kick straight again.

Spearguns and bands

The bands die first, and sunlight kills them. Rinse them in fresh water, dry them out of the sun, and store the gun unloaded, always. Latex under constant tension loses power whether you shoot it or not.

If you dive often, expect to replace bands every season or two. Cracks across the rubber, a chalky grey surface, or a visible loss of stretch mean they are finished. A band that snaps under load is dangerous at arm's length.

Rinse the shaft, dry it, and wipe it with a light oil. Check the wishbone and the shooting line for fraying at every knot — that is where line fails, not in the middle.

Keep WD-40 away from your gun. It attacks plastics and rubber, and on a pneumatic gun it will reach the piston seals. If your gun is pneumatic, use the oil the manufacturer specifies and nothing else.

Sharpen the tip with a file, a few strokes along the original angle. A blunt shaft bounces off a fish instead of going through it.

Torches and anything with a battery

Rinse the light with the head closed and still sealed, then dry it completely before you open it. Water sitting in the threads runs straight into the body the moment you unscrew it.

Clean the O-ring, check it for grit and nicks, and put a thin smear of silicone grease on it — thin enough to look wet, not thick enough to see. Grease does not seal anything by itself; it stops the ring from being pinched or dragged as you close the light.

Take the batteries out if you are storing the light for more than a couple of weeks, and store lithium cells at around half charge rather than full or empty.

Never run a dive light at full power in air for more than a few seconds. They are built to dump their heat into water. In air they cook themselves.

Knives, stringers, scissors

Fresh water, dry, then a wipe of oil on the blade and the spring. "Stainless" at sea means slow, not never.

Reels and line

Rinse the reel with the line still on the spool, dry it, and back the drag off before storage. A drag washer left compressed all winter comes back stiff and jerky, which you discover on the one fish you wanted.

Once a season

• Stretch every band in daylight and look along it.
• Replace every O-ring you cannot certify as perfect. They cost less than a flooded torch.
• Check that belt buckles and quick-release clips open one-handed, wet and cold.
• Rinse the bag itself. It is full of sand.

None of this is interesting, and all of it is cheaper than buying the same thing twice.