Wetsuit Repairs Ocean Grove
The wetsuit repair workshop in Ocean Grove. Drop your suit at 9 to 11 Sinclair Street, Thursday and Friday 11am to 5pm or Saturday 9am to 1pm. All brands, written quotes, no job too small.
The Wetsuit Repair Shack·
The bench · Ocean Grove
We are the repair shack, and we are on Sinclair Street.
If you surf Ocean Grove main beach, swim at the river mouth, or dive out of Point Lonsdale, your nearest wetsuit repairer is a few minutes away rather than an hour up the highway. Most people on the Bellarine have been posting suits interstate or quietly binning them, which is a shame given we are sitting here with the glue out.
9 to 11 Sinclair Street, Ocean Grove. Open Thursday and Friday 11am to 5pm, Saturday 9am to 1pm. Drop off available when closed. Walk in with a suit, walk out without one.
What we do
Every repair a wetsuit can need. Tears and fin cuts of any length, seams, zips and sliders, neck and cuff seals, knee panels, booties, hoods, gloves, panel replacement, and alterations if the suit no longer fits the body wearing it.
All brands. Rip Curl, O'Neill, Patagonia, Xcel, Vissla, Billabong, C Skins, Need Essentials, Quiksilver and whatever else comes through the door.
Current prices for every job are on the repairs page. Inspection and quoting are free, and nothing happens until you approve the quote.
What Ocean Grove suits come in with
There is a pattern, and after a while you can guess where someone surfs from the damage.
Fin cuts from the main beach. Ocean Grove is a beach break with a lot of people on it, especially through summer and on any decent weekend. Fin cuts to the outer thigh and the calf are the most common repair we do, and most of them come from within a few kilometres of the shack.
Sand abrasion on the knees and seat. Our sand is coarse and it works like fine grit paper on neoprene. Anyone kneeling on a board or sitting on the beach between sets wears knee panels faster here than on a reef coast.
River mouth and estuary wear. Swimmers and paddlers working the Barwon River mouth deal with silt and sand getting into zips. The grit sits in the zip track and chews the slider.
Winter seals gone soft. The Bellarine surfs year round and a suit doing five hard months loses its neck seal before it loses anything else. A loose neck flushes the whole suit on every duck dive, which is why people decide their suit has stopped being warm when the neoprene is still fine.
Nippers and junior suits. Ocean Grove SLSC puts a lot of kids in the water. Junior suits get grown out of rather than worn out, and taking one in or passing it down is usually cheaper than a new one.
Drop off and collect
Come in Thursday or Friday between 11am and 5pm, or Saturday morning between 9am and 1pm. There is parking on Sinclair Street.
Wash the suit in fresh water first and let it dry completely, both sides. This is not fussiness. Glue will not bond to salt, and we cannot properly inspect a wet suit, so a damp drop off just means a delay.
Bring the whole suit even if the damage is in one spot. We look over the lot, because the problems people have not noticed are usually the ones that end the suit.
If you cannot make opening hours, drop off is available when we are closed, or post it in. Plenty of people leave a suit on a Friday and pick it up the following week on the way to the beach.
What happens to your suit
It goes on the bench and gets gone over properly. Every tear, every seam run, the zip, the seals, the knee panels, and the condition of the rubber itself.
You get photographs of everything we find and a fixed quote, itemised so you can see what each job costs on its own. That includes problems you did not report, which is usually a seam at the stage where it leaks but still looks intact.
You choose what goes ahead. Fix the tear and skip the cosmetic seam if that is what suits you. Nothing is done without your approval, and if you decide against the lot, you pay nothing for the look.
Repairs are hand stitched, seam glued and pressure tested before they leave the bench. Every one carries a 3 month workmanship warranty.
When we will tell you not to bother
Some suits are finished, and we would rather say so than take your money.
Pinch the neoprene a few centimetres from the damage and let it go. Healthy rubber springs back and feels springy. Perished rubber feels papery, stays stretched, and sometimes crumbles a little. If the liner is peeling away from the foam in sheets across several panels, that is delamination, and glue has nothing solid to bond to.
Damage in healthy rubber is repairable almost without exception. Damage in perished rubber means the patch holds and the panel beside it goes next month. Our guide on whether a wetsuit can be repaired walks through the checks you can do at home before you come in.
Why repair rather than replace
A mid range 4/3 is around $520 and a premium suit runs past $700. Almost every repair costs a small fraction of that.
There is the fit argument too. A suit broken in over two winters moves better and flushes less than anything new off a rack, and nobody wants to spend June breaking in stiff rubber.
And there is the bin. Neoprene does not biodegrade, there is no recycling stream for it in Australia, and a wetsuit in landfill sits there for centuries. On a peninsula where most households own two or three suits, repair is the only thing that actually reduces that. Our piece on where old wetsuits go has the numbers.
Beyond Ocean Grove
We cover the whole Bellarine Peninsula and well past it. Geelong is about 35 minutes up the highway and Torquay around 25 minutes the other way. Barwon Heads, Point Lonsdale, Queenscliff, Portarlington and St Leonards are all a short run.
Anywhere else in Australia, post it. Our postal repairs page has the process and a packing checklist.
Frequently asked questions
Where can I get a wetsuit repaired in Ocean Grove?
The Wetsuit Repair Shack is at 9 to 11 Sinclair Street, Ocean Grove, open Thursday and Friday 11am to 5pm and Saturday 9am to 1pm, with drop off available when we are closed. We repair every brand and every type of damage, with free inspection and a fixed written quote before any work starts.
Do I need an appointment to drop off a wetsuit?
No. Walk in during opening hours. Wash the suit in fresh water and dry it completely on both sides first, because we cannot assess or work on a wet suit.
What does a wetsuit repair cost?
It depends on the job, and every repair is listed with its current price on our repairs page. Inspection and quoting are free, and the quote is fixed before any work begins.
Can you repair my wetsuit while I wait?
No. Neoprene glue needs 24 hours to cure and rushing it is how a repair fails. Drop off and collect, or post it in.
Do you repair junior and nipper wetsuits?
Yes, and we also take suits in or let them out as kids grow. Altering a junior suit is usually cheaper than replacing it, and it means a suit gets handed down rather than binned.
Do you repair dive suits and swim wetsuits as well as surf suits?
Yes. Dive wetsuits, triathlon and open water suits, spring suits, vests and booties all come across the bench. Thin skin triathlon neoprene needs a different patching method and is priced separately.
Bring it in
Send a photo first if you want an idea of what it needs before you make the trip.
The Wetsuit Repair Shack, 9 to 11 Sinclair Street, Ocean Grove VIC 3226. Open Thursday and Friday 11am to 5pm, Saturday 9am to 1pm. Drop off available when closed. Postal repairs Australia wide.
