14,642 days later: The legend of Dale Webster

Imagine surfing every single day for 40 years. Every. Freaking. Day. Four decades without missing a session. I declared last Thursday, August 14, International Dale Webster Day, celebrating his incredible, unwavering commitment to surfing. Let me introduce you to Dale.

The first time I heard about Dale Webster was when I watched Step Into Liquid. If you missed this one, it’s a documentary by Dana Brown (son of Bruce Brown of The Endless Summer) that came out two years after Riding Giants.

There’s a four-minute scene in the movie where we meet Dale, a Californian surfer from Bodega Bay, who at the time of filming was around 53 years old.

At the time of the interview, he had already surfed 9,182 consecutive days — a little over 25 years. His goal was to surf until 2004, when he’d reach 10,407 consecutive days. Why that number? Because in February 1976 there were five consecutive Sundays, and this wouldn’t happen again until 2004. It’s a super rare event — the next time will be in 2032. Dale gave himself the challenge to surf every day until February of that special year.

Dale mentions that when it started, he thought of it first as a streak, then a quest, and finally a mission. Within those initial 25 years, he went through two pounds of wax, 32 surfboards, and 48 wetsuits — all of which he kept.

Dale’s streak, quest and mission

During his mission, he always aimed to catch at least three waves a day, a pursuit that would sometimes take him up to three hours per session. Oh, and one wave would have to be ridden all the way to the beach. Something to bear in mind: you hear “California” and you might not think about sub-55°F water temperatures, which Dale endured during the winter months.

If you ever see footage of Dale surfing backwards, that’s him bowing to the waves to give thanks — an ancient Hawaiian tradition. Dale said: “What I was trying to do was not surfing against anyone else, but surfing against myself, because surfing is the ultimate spontaneous involvement in a natural medium.”
You’d think that surfing every day wouldn’t be particularly conducive to good family life, but Dale’s family — especially his daughter Margot — understood. Her words were like a prophecy: “I’m very proud of what he does. I truly don’t think he’ll be able to stop surfing every day, because after he’s gotten that far, I’m pretty sure he’ll just be like, ‘Okay, well, I can surf for 30 years in a row, I can surf longer.’”

Guinness World Records officially recognized his pursuit in 2003 as the world record for most days consecutively surfed, with over 10,100 days. In this day and age, I don’t see that record ever being beaten.

Matt Warshaw describes Dale as a “sad-eyed monomaniacal surfer who began mat-surfing in 1957, and stand-up surfing in 1961.” His surfing mission began in September 1975 when a “Monster from New Zealand” swell hit Sonoma County. In 2015, Dale was quoted as saying about his mission: “It’ll die when I die.”

Dale ended up surfing for 14,642 consecutive days, from September 2, 1975, to October 5, 2015. His mission ended due to kidney stone surgery. We’re talking about an estimated 43,923 total waves.
Dale passed away last week, in August 2025. A hui hou, Dale.

Author: The Wipeout Weekly team