There is a tendency to dismiss surfing as little more than a lifestyle statement, the frivolous pursuit of a sect no less frothy than the waves through which they glide. From the cult film Point Break to the aged saxaphoned Guinness adverts, surfing folk have been depicted as enviably tanned curiosities with a hippy-ish loyalty to the camper van and a heavy reliance on the phrase, `dude.'

It is inevitable that an activity with such a resoundingly strong image should foster suspicions as being little more than a poseur's playground. It is, after all, never hard to distinguish between a top surfer and a top darts player.

But as Channel 4's Ride the Wild Surf demonstrated, surfing - blithely as society at large may disregard it - is little short of an obsession to many practitioners.

The documentary followed the revered pioneers of the surf racket, the self-styled `big wave' purists who live to catch the 40 to 70ft swells that are only accessible on a few spots on the surfing globe. The island of Maui is Mecca in this regard, with a swell known locally as Jaws easily visible from the coast line. It was there that the documentary found Laird Hamilton, the undisputed king of the big-wave game and his cohorts.

First impressions of Laird did little to debunk the surfing cliches. There was an inherent beachiness about the man. His very name suggests sunshine and yes, he was blonde and dude. But beyond that, he departed from type. For a start, he was approaching middle age, had young children and was essentially a lonesome, thoughtful type. A self-confessed adrenalin junkie, a dare-devil, there was little posturing when he described his adventures and the inevitable acquisition of "1,000 stitches, broken legs, split shoulder, split open head, concussion."

Hamilton, as the renowned big wave surfer, is afforded a wonderful standard of living by the lucrative brand names he endorses. As such, he is free to devote himself to the essentially mystifying pursuit of living and riding on the periphery of thousands of tonnes of curling, pressurised ocean water.

"It is a leap of faith" explains the surfer himself, admitting that there is a strong element of fear there.

"That fear gives you intelligence," he insists. "In the water, there is a certain solitude that you just don't have on land."

To the average channel surfer, Laird's explanations, though heartfelt, sounded like quasi-religious raving. Fortunately, the visual strength of the film alone sold the truly remarkable state of being he attains on a surfboard.

The sight of Hamilton and his fellow masters such as Dave Kalama crouched under the 50foot breaking waves was as arresting and exhilarating a sports clip as has ever been shown. It was hard not to think that in a parallel world, Hamilton would be the global star and not Tiger Woods or David Beckham or Shaquille O'Neal.

This, after all, was showboating at the very edge of existence, where there was no margin of error. It wasn't so much the successful rides that were spectacular as those wasted in the break of the wave. There was a thrill in watching, in slow motion, the way the water reduced the human form to that of a rag-doll.

The December 1994 footage of Mark Fou, at the time a revered big-wave chaser, was as colourful and spectacular and immense as the rest except that he got caught in the eye of the wave and drowned.

His contemporaries are unapologetic in their admission that the wipe-outs and the thrill of battling through a crushing wave is a big part of the enjoyment. `'It was pretty gnarly, the whole crash was pretty fabulous," was the summation of one such flip, thankfully as close as we came to unbridled dude-speak. But underlying that was a disquieting preoccupation with actually dying in the waves. Bill Hamilton, old man to Laird and a hot shot in the waves back when the Beach Boys were still young, confided that he had dreamt about his son passing on in this way.

"Laird is pursuing his dreams and if he dies in that pursuit, well, in a way we can't say it wasn't meant to be."

One of Larid's colleagues put it more prosaically. "If I'm supposed to go, then sorry I can't hang out."

Hanging out is what they do when they are not towing one another on jet skis into the mouth of the wave, creating enough speed for the surfer to survive the velocity of the water. They are family men, growing older and more tanned together, united by a common addiction that the rest of us can see without ever really getting.

Soccer the world understands, car racing is easy and even fringe sports such as darts or fencing are accessible. The score is clear, the objective is definite. Surfing, though, is too vague a concept for people such as Laird Hamilton to ever be anything other than an underground hero.

In recent years, he has developed a hydrotail rudder that elevates the board above the water and allows the surfer to cut through the uncharted apex of the wave. It has been hailed as the great revolution of the cult sport, the logical conclusion to the Olympian quests for greater speed, height and strength.

And we, the uninitiated, the outsiders, can only ever watch it with bewilderment. It is simply beyond us and therefore natural that we stick to TV evenings of sports that have a beginning and an end and a score line.

It is good, though, that these freaks or geniuses or athletes or whatever Laird Hamilton is, should occasionally find their way into our living rooms. They are true revolutionaries after all, purists in an age when sport has few. And who is to say that the extreme sports of today aren't destined for the mainstream in the century to come. Maybe ignoring Laird Hamilton is our folly.