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How quickly will salt water landings degrade a canopy? Would it be best to place the canopy in a bag and keep it wet after landing until it can get a fresh water immersion/soaking? (to keep the salts from crystalizing and microscopicly shredding the material)

Would the degradation to material be less noticable on a round than a square?

Depends on how long you keep it wet.
I would think that drying it and rinsing it out later wouldn't make much difference. As long as you don't stress the canopy and lines. It's not so much the material degradation you will notice as the line degradation when jumping unrinsed canopies. I do know of one incident of lines breaking at 150 jumps because of this salt crystalization you speak of.
Hope this helps,
take care,
space

I think the salt water is probably safer on your gear than fresh water until it can be cleaned, at least it won't mildew if left wet with salt water...

Excellent article on the subject