33 year-old Tom Butler is a big wave surfer. For the last ten years he’s ridden some of the largest waves in the world, but he’s been ignoring what’s in his backyard off Cornwall’s wild north coast.

With legends of monster waves, Tom spends the winter searching for them. A deadly reef two miles from St Ives, known as the Stones, could deliver him ‘the ultimate Cornish monster wave’. The challenge is, he needs wind and weather conditions to perfectly align.

Tom spends the winter waiting. And as storm after storm batters the Cornish coast, his hopes of finding a monster wave look more and more bleak.

Then finally, in February, his chance comes.  Tom heads back out to the Stones with a large safety team of paramedic, safety boat and back up jet skis. When they arrive it looks like the mission will fail. But as the tide turns something magical happens.  An extraordinary wave forms and for just half an hour, there is an incredible Cornish ‘monster’ some 6m high.

CORNWALL’S WILDEST WAVE is a beautiful celebration of Cornwall, a winter of wild weather and extraordinary waves. But above all, it’s an intimate character profile of Tom Butler,  his love of the ocean,  his soulfulness and an insight into what it means to be surfer.

The ocean makes me feel really alive and in the moment. When you are in the waves you just forget about everything else that’s going on in your life and that’s really special for me. The focus it brings.

Tom Butler