Excerpt from "The Men and their Models," SURFER, May 1967

For all styles of riding and all types and sizes of waves, under any type of surfing conditions, anywhere in the world. Cost for a 9' 6": $155.00. Design Theory: A board with speed and turning potential and all-out maneuverability, yet a noserider to boot.

The shape looks new—not as classy as some, not as beautiful as others, but it is functional. It’s a parallel-rail board, wide and thin. The most obvious new feature of the Performer is the nose. It’s wider—it runs up to 20". It has a full three-quarter-inch scoop or kick, and the front third of the board is blade thin.

The special "turn fin" acts as a stabilizer while riding the nose, but its outstanding function is allowing maximum turning potential and stability in any size surf. It is a deep square fin with a narrow base. The strong fin, constructed of polypropolene (the strongest material on the market), still enables the rider to crank a critical turn in surf as small as one-foot.

Excerpt from "Noseriding Models," Longboard, Fall 1993

Prime-time. Three or four versions of the Performer series flooded both coasts, East and West, and they were the beachbreak-slop boar. Scoop-nosed, flat-bottomedd, and backed up with the heaviest advertising bliz in the history of the sport. The "hatchet fin" froze the tail for mind-bending tip-time, and the overall width gave the board bizarre mush-skating ability.

Excerpt from "Weber Performer: the Most Successful Surfboard Ever?" by Mark Fragale, Longboard, October 2001

The concept and marketing of the Weber Performer could not have been more precisely executed. The model was far and away the best selling board in the history of the sport. During a two-year production run, the Performer reportedly sold between 8,000 and 10,000 units. [Editor's note: Ted Spencer's "White Kite" model, made in Australia during the late '60s and early '70s, is sometimes cited as the best-selling board of all time.]

The Performer’s debut came in the form of full-color ad campaigns published in the sport’s then-premier periodicals: 

 and a multitude of short-lived but well-circulated East Coast publications. At first, the ads were heavy on text, extolling the versatility and uniqueness of the board. But soon the ads moved to intriguing, full-page single images, while the verbose write-ups gave way to highly effective blurbs. And why not? Most any surfer of the period with even a passing interest in equipment was by now cognizant of the Weber Performer. The ads, dispensed like clockwork every 60 days for two years running, further entrenched the model in the mindsets of prospective buyers.

In conjunction with the ad campaign was a Weber Performer promo tour. The well-coordinated traveling roadshow focused on the Eastern seaboard, where the biggest potential market lay in wait. Competitions at each stop were scheduled in advance by Weber’s extensive East Coast dealer network. Posters on telephone poles and surf shop windows preceded the arrival of the Weber entourage and added to the excitement. The chance to meet Dewey and those traveling with him fortified the attraction of attending the events, and well attended they were! More than a few Weber team members wet collected along the way. Meanwhile, back in California, shaper Harold Iggy kept the well-oiled factory machine running faithfully, churning out product to meet the demand.

Introduced in early 1966, the Dewey Weber Performer was designed to perform well in a wide variety of conditions. "Dewey was a fierce competitor," says Iggy. "I remember talking with him during long rides in the car about how he sought to create a board that would function well on both US coastlines."

Each Performer was carved from a Walker Foam blank in the 4.4-pound density range, and featured a double 10-ounce glass job, top and bottom. Typical dimensions of a 9’ 6" Performer: 17” nose, 21.5” width, and 14.5” tail. Stringer configurations included a .75” T-Band arrangement, which was found on the vast majority of stock boards, especially those distributed through wholesale dealer networks. Custom stringer arrangements were available but accounted for just a small percentage of the run.

The Performer was available in East Coast and West Coast configurations, but it took a trained eye to see the differences between them.

The wider-than-average outline of the Performer was enough to give the model its own identity, but without question the board's most defining feature was its skeg. During the early-'60s, most surfboard skegs were full-draft, high volume affairs, with a near-straight trailing edge. Surfboards Hawaii as well as Gordon & Smith were among the earliest manufacturers to break the pattern. Both companies implemented skegs that featured swept-back rake and a lower mass. Initially employed on big-wave boards, these skegs gave finished beach- break surfboards a streamlined look that added to their sales edge in the showroom. The “speed skeg," as it came to be known, soon became standard issue throughout the industry.

Weber was surely aware of this trend, although finding a period Weber Surfboard with a speed skeg is unusual. Yet again, Dewey chose a different path. Always one up on the competition, he devised a special skeg for the Performer named the “Turn Fin.” The skeg was such a departure from the norm that to copy it would have been blatant plagiarism. On the beach, the unique skeg was referred to as the “Hatchet Fin," so named for its resemblance to a small ax. Its appearance was so unique, that when a Performer was placed atop automobile roof racks, the board was identifiable even as it whizzed by at 60 mph. Call it a sales gimmick, but the fin played a big part leading the Performer towards record-setting sales.

Throughout the initial production run, the fiberglass-laminated skegs were routed into the stringers, then glassed in place. The rake angle of the fin was so steep that, despite a forward placement on the surfboard, the skeg extending past the tail block, often by several inches. In theory, the narrow base of the Turn Fin was to make for easy turning, but any real gains in performance are debatable.

Weber closed out 1966 with a Performer ad showing a closeup photo of a chessboard with the header reading: “It's your move.” The ad text read, in part: “November was 10 months ago. We’ve sold over 5,000 Performers since then. The Performer has proven itself, so now . . . It’s your move."

Fortified by a year-long success with the model, Dewey Weber Surfboards introduced a revamped second-generation Performer for 1967. Except for the parallel rails and Turn Fin, little was retained from the first model. The familiar red, black and white Dewey Weber logo was no longer used. Instead, the model received its own laminate, now spelled WEBERPERFORMER, in all caps. The board was thinner, featured a wide and well-scooped nose, a removable polypropylene Wonderbolt fin system, and a one-inch high-density foam stringer bordered by quarter-inch redwood strips. This composite stringer made the Performer the widest surfboard on the market.

The Weber advertising team went into overdrive. The second-generation Performer came with a year-long series of double-page, full-color gatefold ads. The marketing brought the art of selling surfboards to a whole new level.

Says Iggy, “The demand for the Performer often outstripped our ability to build them. We reached our peak production that year [1967] with a workforce of maybe 40 employees turning out as many as 45 surfboards a day. During summer months we operated the factory six days a week, at full capacity.”

Iggy was second in charge of the operation, just under Dewey. Maintaining quality and meeting production schedules was an ongoing, challenging test. The production facility was set up with team leaders to oversee work at each station. Employees were paid piece rate and many had the option to come in on Sundays or at night to both accomplish their tasks and find time to surf when the waves came up. Company meetings involving the full workforce were rare, although team leaders conferred often to maintain goals and production schedules.

High volume necessitated the use of a jig to pre-shape the Performer blanks. Under Iggy's watchful eye, raw blanks from Walker Foam were placed in the jig, shaved and to within an eight-inch of tolerance and made ready by a team of rough shapers. Iggy then turned the rails and finished off the shaping of most every Performer that left Weber Surfboards. By producing surfboards in this matter, the Performer was likely the most consistently precise board of the period.

When asked about his own signature model, Iggy says, “Dewey knew that the Performers could rot satisfy every surfer’s need for what they wanted out of a surfboard. He suggested we offer an Iggy model with a narrow profile and reduced nose area to diversify the product line. I created the model but demand was so strong for the Performers that only about 150 or 200 Iggy models were made."

Typical measurements for the '67 model Performer were 9' long, 19.5" in the nose, 23" width, and 16" in the tail. The wide, think, kicked-up nose design initiated a barrage of similar boards, among them the Con Ugly, the Hansen 50-50, the Rick UFO, the Bunger 360, the Jacobs 422, and the Greek Eliminator.

To expedite delivery and shipping to dealers across the country, the removable Wonderbolt Fin, devised Tom Morey, became a standard feature.

By 1967 the Weber Surfboards network had grown to eight exclusive and 20 multi-line outlets for a total of 28 outlets. Dealers were as diverse as Ron's skin-diving shop in Mobile, Alabama, and Felix’s Marine Shop in Michigan.

The Weber Surf Team continued to grow and draw new talent from all over the country. Like a blond-haired band of motorcycle riders, the Weber Team proudly and defiantly flew their colors (red, black, and white), with chapters spread from East to West, Hawaii and the Gulf. Surfing skills aside, the sight of an assembly of Weber teamriders in their matching jackets and baggies was intimidating to even the most seasoned competitor.

Recruitment for the Weber Surf Team came in many different forms. Says one-time team member from New York, Roger Feit, “I had been surfing quite well at the time. Some stranger approached me and asked if I would like to be on the Dewey Weber Surf team. I said sure. The next thing I knew I was contacted by Dewey Weber Surfboards to go to the local dealer and claim several boards. Weeks later the red coat and matching trunks arrived in the mail. Weber paid for most of my contest entries, but that’s about as organized as it ever got. I did eventually get to meet Dewey during one of the promo sweeps he made up and down the East Coast.”

The look of the Performer continued to evolve. When paisley and psychedelic prints became trendy, Weber adapted quickly. Remembers Iggy, “Somehow we discovered these brightly-colored girls’ dresses made of paper. They were in fashion at the time; probably influenced by the artist Peter Max.

So at first we cut them and used them under the glass. The paper dresses, unlike colored cloth, didn't add weight to the board. After some searching, we finally found the source for colored design paper on rolls and moved them into production, and we used those instead of the dresses."

Deeper into the 1967 Performer run, Weber introduced the availability of three different widths, three different levels of nose rocker, and a choice of a wide balsa stringer or thin wood strip in place of the standard foam T-band stringer.

By offering alternative more alternatives, the buyers' tastes were catered to, while at the same time the Performer content was maintained. This provided several months of additional longevity for the model at a time when the marketplace began to change rapidly.

Nonetheless, the Performer reached its conclusion in 1968. The shortboard revolution touched American shores just after the winter of '67-'68. Responding to this new reality, Weber Surfboards left the Performer behind and introduced three new models, all of which were still longboards at heart: the Professional, the Feather, and Stylist. Market share was preserved for the moment, but the ground continued to shift beneath the company's feet. The new models never found any real foothold with surfers before the explosive upheaval of the shortboard revolution only months later during the summer of 1968. Adaptations were offered in “mini" lengths to better fit the moment but were quickly phased out, giving way to the Weber Strato Series, which in turn led the DNT Series, the Ski, the Pig, and others—none of which came close to the Performer in sales or notoriety

By the early '70s, the American surfboard industry was a shadow of its former self. The advent of the backyard underground shaper was at hand. The DIY boardmakers were nimble and had virtually no overhead, which made it all but impossible for the bigger operations to compete. For the most part, the big-name labels that had dominated the industry perished. Weber Surfboard was no exception.

Dewey was especially vulnerable during this tumultuous period, especially with his business closing its doors. He took up fishing to fill the void, but no answer was to be found there. Years of heavy drinking began to weigh heavily on his health, and in 1993 Dewey Weber passed on.

Weber was that rare combination of surfboard builder and surf star, the quintessential hot-dogger, the “Little Man on Wheels." A big part of his legacy can be found in the Weber Performer.

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