Equipment failure is the most common cause of aborted dives and a significant factor in dive incidents. Most equipment failures are preventable — not through advanced technical knowledge but through basic pre-dive checks, honest service schedules, and familiarity with your own kit.
Own Equipment vs. Hire Equipment
The question of whether to own equipment or hire it is not primarily a cost question — it is a familiarity question. A diver who owns and regularly uses their own BCD, regulator, and computer has a fundamentally different relationship with their equipment than one who picks up a hire set at the start of each trip. They know exactly how the inflator behaves. They know their computer's alarm settings. They know the regulator's breathing characteristics at depth. This familiarity has a direct relationship with underwater confidence and response time when something requires attention.
The minimum personal equipment that every diver should own, regardless of how often they dive: mask, fins, wetsuit appropriate to their primary diving environment, dive computer. These items are in contact with your body and face. Hire versions will never fit or perform as well as equipment that was chosen for and fitted to you.
The Pre-Dive Check
The pre-dive equipment check — the BWRAF sequence (BCD, Weights, Releases, Air, Final check) or equivalent — is taught in open water training and then gradually abandoned by most divers as they accumulate experience. This is backwards. The check becomes more important, not less, as diving becomes more demanding, conditions more varied, and equipment more complex.
The check that takes ninety seconds on deck prevents the problem that takes ninety minutes to resolve — and surfaces the one that should have grounded the dive entirely.
Service and Maintenance
Regulators should be serviced annually or every 100 dives, whichever comes first. This is not a manufacturer recommendation designed to generate revenue — it is the interval at which the internal parts of a first and second stage begin to degrade in ways that are not visible in normal use but are detectable on a service bench. A regulator that free-flows underwater at depth is dangerous. A regulator that fails to deliver adequate flow at depth is more dangerous.
BCDs are the most neglected piece of dive equipment. The internal bladder accumulates salt and biological material from water that enters through the dump valves and inflator hose. An annual rinse through the bladder — clean fresh water in, shake, drain through every valve — extends the life of the internal bladder substantially and prevents the valve corrosion that causes slow leaks.
Dive computers require less maintenance but more attention. Battery replacement intervals matter: a computer that shows low battery on the morning of a dive is not serviceable for that dive. Know your computer's battery life and replace proactively rather than reactively.