LeSkiAvantTout

Good job none of you lads live in Northern Ireland or you'd still be practising your deep water starts if you refused to ski in the rain LOL!

As a London based skier I've just been running the numbers for me to ski 50 sets as a member and my wife 10 as a non-member at various clubs, looking at between £1250 ($1900) and £1640 ($2500)...having skied all the clubs you generally get what you pay for in terms of quality of boat/coaching. Do prefer an 8 pass set though, 6 too short if you're not running short-line/dropping end every pass IMO. Rock up to most clubs as a non-member and if you can get a set it'll cost around £30/$45 which I guess is fair.

Carbon's where it's at. Why should a free skier use an inferior product? D3 X3 will suit anyone who can deep water start, imagine Connelly Carbon V likewise.

my aim this season is to get to where you are now from the half-course currently so nice one! My prob is I slow right down at the bouy, am pretty fit and all the rest just need to be less tentative, easy to say sat at a keyboard though! Will be back this weekend to make bouy 2 though!

"Anything you do to improve strength and balance is good." not sure about that mate, i tried boxing recently on those grounds. lad from work took me along and told them i waterskied on one ski, am reasonably fit looking so got thrown in the ring with a hardcase who battered me, not sure will help me make an extra buoy! Good workout for skiing though if you just do the training and stay out of the ring.

Heard reports it's been bought by BAA (highly plausible as owners of nearby Heathrow Airport) so that's the end of that sadly.

Giving it up to the boy Cam, went to University in Scotland anyone skis up there in December/January is the guvnor! Will try and get out this weekend as not that cold London way but gales forecast which may stump me.

Skied here a number of times. Very sorry for the staff. Skiers and boarders are relatively well catered for though as do have other choices nearby, principally Liquid Leisure and JB SKi both of which are broadly similiar scale. Personally I found Princes OK once I actually learned to ski which may sound a bit daft but partially explains the problem it (and other UK clubs) suffer, ie where do you to learn if you're paying £30 ($50) for a 12 minute slot on a borrowed ski and there's a guy waiting on the dock with £2K worth of carbon ski and hardshell boots! We are hardcore though, skied 11 out of 12 months last year (January freeze out) aiming to make it 12/12 in 2012 and I'm not even making it round full-course yet!

Wonder what driver was watching in his mirror.... Anyway never skied X7 but ski on the X3 and it's magic. I'm purely recreational skier, half-course at best (don't have access to one anyway) and came to this straight from borrowed Connelly pilots etc. Have no idea what it's capable of but user friendly in the extreme and as I've (kind off) improved get the impression would take me round a course at a fair lick. Perfect starter ski if you want the kudos of carbon not fibreglass. My wife is pretty much a beginner and it's sometimes a little twitchy/difficult to get up on for her but once your past that level it's a gem!

@jimbrake College sport in US is by and large on a whole different scale to elsewhere, certainly in the UK. Knocks me on my ass when I visit mid-west with my American wife and watch likes of Notre Dame draw a crowd of 80K, that's more than the England football team! On the other hand when college sport gets serious over here, best example the Oxford v Cambridge boat race, then it's a ULM situation, ie few if any British undergrads in the boat but lots Americans/Canadian/Germans (the Winklevoss twins of Facebook infamy rowed couple years back, no-one can tell me they were there to get a degree!). Making college skiing US nationals only be a bad move IMO, it's a global world now guys!