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Surfing plumber chases world’s biggest wave

28/07/2016
Professional big wave surfer Andrew Cotton risked his whole season to try and surf a giant wave off Ireland. Here the British athlete, who used to be a plumber and a lifeguard, explains how he travelled to the middle of the Atlantic Ocean in the winter 2015 looking for the next big swell.
 
Surfing plumber chases world’s biggest wave 
  
 
 
27.07.2016
 
 
Professional big wave surfer Andrew Cotton risked his whole season to try and surf a giant wave off Ireland. Here the British athlete, who used to be a plumber and a lifeguard, explains how he travelled to the middle of the Atlantic Ocean in the winter 2015 looking for the next big swell. 

“I've been dreaming about this wave for years, always been watching it from a distance and just wondering until 2013 when [we] missioned out on a very cold January morning,” said Cotton on his Instagram page this Tuesday following the release of the Red Bull TV documentary “Beneath the Surface”. 

The American surfer Garrett McNamara currently holds the Guinness World Record for surfing the largest ever wave (78 feet) in 2011 in Portugal, but Cotton believes he’s spotted a beast that can compete off the Irish coast. 

“This place is gnarly, it's remote, isolated and extremely dangerous,” he said. “What we saw that morning blew my mind. […] I've been waiting for the right time, right conditions to tackle it but last winter made it one of my main goals to score it. Wanting to build a solid profile of this wave that I've been visualizing for the past four years, understanding what swell, wind and size it breaks best at." 

This father of two from North Devon spent the winter monitoring this slab wave, a type of ocean wave formed in the deeper depths of the ocean. With his crew, he took a boat eight miles off the coast of Ireland, mapping the swell and trying to catch one almighty ride. 

"It hasn't been an easy mission and you don't always get what you want.” 
 		  
 
     
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