The American surfer, Kelly Slater, has won the 1997 World Surfing Championships in Hawaii for a record fifth time.

"I love the wave. I love being around here in this location and I love the weather. It all comes together for a great event," said Slater.

His achievement comes at a time when surfing is attracting massive financial backing from sponsors, and breaking all records for prize money.

Now worth $2bn, the 'Pipemaster' event is a far cry from the early competitions in the 1970s when the sport had little recognition and the prize money was hardly enough to pay for a board.

This year the prize money offered to surfers totals nearly $6m and the worldwide surfing industry netted nearly $2 bn. Surfing has become a fiercely competitive sport.

Surfers like Slater, who earns more than half a million dollars a year, enjoy the trappings of celebrity status for as long as they are at the top.

Former World Champion Damien Hardman said: "You know every guy that you could pit against could win the contest.

You don't even have to pick up a board

"It's like any other sport where there's big money involved. People get hungrier and kids start younger and there's just more surfers and more great surfers."

There are some 11,00 professional surfers around the world, but only a small percentage make it into the top 44 for a shot at the world title.

To participate in the unique culture and embrace the surfing way of life, you do not even have to pick up a board.

Dr Andy Martin, author of 'Walking on Water' said: "Just about everyone on this twelve mile strip of sand is obsessed by surfing in one way or another.

"If not actually surfers, then they're serving surfers, they're doctors who are patching up surfers or they're photographers who are turning those waves into some kind of immortal art statement. Or they're lifeguards who are dragging out dead bodies."

Kelly Slater insists that surfing is a generally safe sport whose standards move up a gear every year.

He already forsees the new generation of champions: "You've got to go behind what's happening now and I expect by the time I retire from surfing that it'll be above what I am at by far."

For truly die hard surfers there remains an ultimate challenge - the $60,000 reward for surfing and surviving the biggest recorded wave. All you have to do is prove it.
 

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