Spyder Wright
Early eastern surfboard builder, shop owner, East Coast Champion and Mid-Atlantic legend. In 1963 Spyder Wright, an Ocean City local, began making surfboards while away at college in California. In the summer of 1964 Wright had a plan: He scoured the beaches of Southern California for used surfboards and once he acquired 10 boards, he loaded them onto the roof of his car and headed back home to Maryland. Wright set up a beach rental business, the first in town.
He began making, selling and renting Spyder Surfboards. In late 1964 he opened the first Spyder Surf Shop in Ocean City where he sold Spyder and Dewey Weber Surfboards. Success came quickly and by 1965 Spyder was surfing winters on Hawaii’s North Shore of Oahu and jetting over to Maui, where he was one of the pioneers at Honolua Bay along with friends Randy Rarick and Fred Hemmings. While on the North Shore he met Duke Kahanamoku and began representing Duke’s company on the East Coast.
In 1968 Spyder and Gary Propper joined forces and opened a surf shop in Palm Beach, Florida. From 1970 to 1980 Spyder opened shops in Rehoboth, DE, Annapolis, MD, Washington D.C. and Nantucket, RI. In 1979 Spyder won the East Coast Championship and was seeded into the US Championship where he came in 5th. From 1979-1982 he was Competition Director for the US Surfing Federation and in 1980 led an effort at a meeting with the US Olympic Committee, Competition Committee to include Surfing in the Olympics. Today Wright has two retail locations in Nantucket and Palm Beach, FL, and numerous shops sell his surfboards. He is widely recognized as one of “the living legends” in the sport.
