A water-skier today vowed to pursue a campaign of civil disobedience by constantly breaking a new speed limit on Windermere.

Company director Tony Kemp, 44, of Bingley, said teams of masked men wearing identical clothing would begin speeding on four lakes simultaneously to undermine the new law.

The Lake District National Park Author-ity yesterday began to enforce its new 10mph limit for all powered boats using Windermere. Mr Kemp marked the occasion by joining other protesters who sped across the lake at around 30mph just minutes after the new speed limit was imposed.

Today, Mr Kemp, who claims the authority has reneged on a 30-year agreement to preserve parts of the Cumbrian lake for water-skiers, vowed to continue the protest.

Two years ago, he launched the campaign group Windermere Action Force (WAF) to fight the speed limit.

Water-skiers are already prevented from using Derwent Water, Ullswater and Coniston Water in the Lake District because of 10mph limits imposed there.

Mr Kemp, operations director for an advertising agency in Shipley, said: "This is the last public-access lake in Britain - there is nowhere else for us to water-ski.

"This new limit is unjust and unnecessary. The speed limit only applies to powered boats, not to yachts. So I could water-ski at 20mph on a yacht and not a powerboat, but that would be more dangerous. If I was water-skiing with one of my children and they fell in I could stop in a powerboat and quickly return to the scene but in a yacht it would take more time to respond."

The group is planning speeding campaigns across the four main lakes wearing masks and identical clothing to make it "impossible" for them to be caught.

A spokesman for the Lake District National Park authority said: "There isn't a ban, just a 10mph compulsory speed limit.

"But we do accept that water skiing and the use of personal water craft are difficult or impossible at such speeds. With the absence of power boats going fast, lake activity will return to a more tranquil style.

"This is in keeping with the special qualities of the Lake District National Park."

Mr Kemp, a dad-of-three, said three generations of his family had been water-skiing for 40 years on Windermere, England's lar-gest lake at 12 miles long and a mile wide.