GET YOUR KIT ON:This week the sport of waterskiing features in our continuing series on taking up a new activity

AT SOME STAGE or other I have tried my hand at most of the sports in this series, but an invitation from neighbours more than 30 years ago to give waterskiing a try fell through, and the opportunity never came around again. So part of me wanted to jump at the chance when the Golden Falls club got on a few weeks back.

I had my doubts, though, about the fitness benefits of a pursuit I viewed as primarily involving hanging on to the end of a rope for dear life as you get pulled about by a very fast boat. And while there turned out to be some truth to that expectation, I can see that Lia, my initial contact at the club, was right to scoff at my scepticism.

In the end, my two kids, Kate and Daire, came along to give it a shot with Daryl Higgins, the club’s resident instructor (he actually lives onsite), at its rather idyllic base on a private lake not far from Ballymore Eustace, 40km from Dublin.

Asked to outline the sport’s attraction, Eamonn Prunty, of the Irish Aquatic Sports Centre, near Summerhill in Co Meath, said it was difficult, but insisted that anyone trying it would get it straight away. If my two are anything to go by, he’s bang on, because both became immediately hooked and are anxious to return at the earliest opportunity.

Higgins, meanwhile, was great with both, providing enormously good- natured encouragement as well as expert tuition. Daire, at a few days short of seven years old, found the whole thing tough going at the first attempt, but got enough out of it to want to go again. Kate (11) took to it like a duck to you know what and would happily have stayed out there for the whole of what was a fairly glorious late-summer day.

As for me, I found it more manageable than I had expected, and enormously enjoyable. The cost of a lesson normally ranges from €25 to €35 per person for about 20 minutes.

While that’s not cheap, the comparison that springs to mind cost-wise is horse-riding, which I also recently tried for the first time, and I can confirm that, at least at the initial toe-in-the-water stage, so to speak, waterskiing generates more laughs.

“The reaction we get from people is great,” says Higgins, an infectiously enthusiastic Irish champion who gave up selling cars in order to train and coach the sport full-time.

“We’ve been doing a lot of work on encouraging people to give it a go, and we’ve had big groups of women and kids up through the summer, and most of them have loved it.

“We guarantee that you will be waterskiing by the fourth lesson, and the fifth one will be free if you can’t.”

In fact, we all managed waterskiing of some sort during lesson one, even if, as the accompanying pictures show, it might take me another few sessions to master hanging on while posing for the camera with any degree of dignity.

Prunty, a twice Disabled World Champion, is anxious to encourage other wheelchair users to try the sport.

“We were on holidays in Cork when we saw an ad for a local club that said it was open to able-bodied and disabled people, and I took to it straight way. I was seven at the time, and entered my first competition when I was nine,” he says.

“We try to encourage others to come along now by giving them member rates on runs and we have a few regulars coming through well at the moment.”

Both clubs offer lessons to newcomers until the end of next month, after which both shut up shop for the winter before returning again in spring.

WHAT THEY SAY

‘Matt broke his pinkie waterskiing; he’s having surgery today . . . I mean, we’re all kind of extreme guys.”

In the wake of former bandmate Matt Sorum’s mishap, ex Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan reveals that waterskiing can be fully integrated into a rock’n’roll lifestyle.

WHAT IT DOES

Dr Giles Warrington at DCU cautions that you might need some basic fitness before trying waterskiing, as getting started is physically demanding and you’re likely to struggle if, as he delicately puts it, you’re “very deconditioned”.

“You’ll need to master some basic technique, as well, so as to maximise enjoyment and minimise the risk of injury, but once you get going it’s very exhilarating and quite a good workout.

“You’ll be hitting quite a range of muscles – mainly in the upper body, the shoulders, arms and back – but also in the lower body.

“You’ll build flexibility and endurance, as well as developing your co- ordination and balance, all of which is good. Along the way, you should be burning somewhere between 350 and 500 calories per hour.

WHAT IT TAKES

The basics include a wetsuit, skis, a life vest and gloves, and you should be able to purchase the collected entry-level kit for about €300. Prices rise until you get to the point of needing the elite equipment, where just the skis could set you back more than €5,000. Most clubs, though, provide everything you’ll need in the price of the lessons.

WHERE IT’S AT

There are 15 clubs listed on the Irish Waterski and Wakeboard Federation’s website (irishwwf.ie), and while some don’t make it easy to get in touch, the list is a decent starting point. The geographical spread is a little limited, but there are clubs near most of the main population centres, including Waterford, Cork and Limerick.

Anyone interested in seeing high-level jump and slalom competition can drop by Golden Falls this Saturday or Sunday. Contact details for the two clubs are available at goldenfallswater skiclub.com and wakeboardingand waterskiing.com.