How to care for D2 work knife on a boat?

[Seedy Lot]

D2 is fairly corrosion resistant. A D2 knife would have to be sitting idle for long periods of time with no oil, grease, wax or other protection to degrade the edge like that significantly between usage.

Your on a boat and the fish are jumping, knife is used but only wiped off on the leg of your pants, that would be enough to potentially start effecting keenness of edge. I have had it happen with K390 in a dry climate fresh water environment. Cleaned a fish, wiped of the blade and went on with tasks at hand and by next day the keenest of edge had dropped enough to notice on use and confirmed under magnification.

If the D2 has had a low temper ht then its corrosion resistance is noticeably better but still not that great compared to other tool steels.

So yes D2 is fine if wiped cleaned and kept oiled in a salty environment but it is also easy to argue that there are much better steels for the job.