Armed with the latest high-tech GPS tracking devices and aided by meteorologist and professional surf-forecaster Ben Matson, Tom and Ross go to New Zealand's remote Fiordland accompanied by local big wave surfer Doug Young. Ben has tracked a fierce Antarctic storm. Driven by an insatiable desire to push themselves to their utmost limits, the crew man their jet skis and set off on a 44 kilometre trek across open sea to meet the storm head-on.
Their adventure is captured in brilliant HD from three camera perspectives as Mother Nature throws everything she's got at them. Icy cold water, a sub-freezing wind chill factor, gale force winds, volleys of hailstones and some of the meanest waves in the world are just some of the challenges she hurls their way.
Ross Clarke-Jones, himself the epitome of a big wave surfer, calls their escapade, "the epitome of extreme surfing" and recounts that when he took off on his first wave, "it was blowing a full gale." Ross came out of that wave unscathed except for a blood blister from a hailstone that smacked him in the face.
Two-time world champion Tom Carroll describes his first wave a little more poetically: "This wave was like a lion with a long mane," he says, "It had a real roar to it and the sky was a dragon spitting hail."
Storm Surfers: New Zealand is the sequel to the highly acclaimed Storm Surfers: Dangerous Banks. With its mixture of big wave surfing at its best and an inside look at the technological and physical expertise it takes to track, record and ride the biggest waves in the world, Storm Surfers: New Zealand delivers as much adrenaline pumping action as the original.