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There are 4 simple steps to take when it comes to caring for your new wetsuit.

1 - Heed any good advice given to you from the surf shop you have bought your wetsuit from. Most surf shops are staffed by surfers and they have years of experience - so listen to them.

2 - Read your manufacturers guide. Have a flick through their booklet that is provided with the wetsuit to see if there are any particular things you should do.

3 - Register your product for warranty if possible. This is very important when your wetsuit gets damaged when you graze off the reef or the seams give way. Registering your product will speed up the repair of your wetsuit.

4 - Most importantly and very basic advice is this, after each use rinse out and drip dry in a shady place, somewhere like your garage. This not only protects the neoprene material from being slowly degraded but leaves your wetsuit dry and ready to get into for your next surf.

A wetsuit works by allowing a very thin film of water to be trapped between your skin and the wetsuit. Your body heat then heats up this film of water and this is what keeps you warm. Others wetsuits fit so snuggly that no water is needed to create that film.

Generally, the thicker the wetsuit neoprene then the warmer you stay. Any flushing of water down the neck entry or up the arms or leaking through the seams will drastically reduce the performance of the wetsuit. So a proper fitting wetsuit is so important.

There are many good wetsuits on the market but what do you need to look for in a high performance wetsuit?

First and foremost, a really good fitting wetsuit is the most important thing to achieve before any other factor. A crappy wetsuit that fits your body shape is always going to perform better than a bad fitting high quality wetsuit.

That aside, wetsuit manufacturers really do put a lot of research and to refine their wetsuits year on year. So this years wetsuit will always be better than last years and so on. New paneling layouts, better super stretchy neoprene, improved wetsuit entry, neck seal, hard wearing knee pads to withstand lots of duck dives, key stashs and how the panels are fitted together are what you need to look for.

One of the main features that wetsuit manufacturers love to fiddle with is of course the neoprene itself. The top wetsuit manufacturers improve the stretchiness every year, all of them branding it as their own type of stretchy neoprene - Quiksilver’s Hyperstretch, Xcel’s Ultrastretch, Billabong’s Super Flex, Rip Curl’s elastomax and on they go!

So what you need to look for in a high performance wetsuit are: good fit, high quality stretchy neoprene, seam welded neoprene joining of panels and a secure seal around the neck.