I did a quick few minutes of research,and the 17-55 is not known a a particularly good lens in terms of against the light shooting. Your samples show both flare,and ghosting.
I'm not that familiar with the length and breadth of the Canon lens line, but I did a couple of Google searches, and there are some fans of that 10-22 Big Mike mentioned above, for working against the light.
I hate to make this seem like a Canon versus Nikon thing, because it's not, but one of the world's foremost Nikon lens authorities is a European nature photog named Bjorn Rorslett, who has reviews of many Nikon lenses, and for example, I picked these three lenses out as being among the VERY best wide-angles for shooiting right at the sun:
Wide-Angle Lenses For Nikon 'F' Mount
20mm f/3.5 AiS Nikkor, 52mm filter thread: "This tiny lens is extremely well corrected for flare and ghosting; accordingly is the inside tip for nature photographers fond of shooting into the sun (I am one of those)."
28mm f/2 AiS Nikkor: "This lens is unusually resistant to flare and ghosting and eminently suitable for shooting directly into the sun."
28mm f/3.5 Nikkor, "The 28/3.5 performs excellently on the newer D2X and D200 digital bodies, giving very sharp and crisp images with just ever so slight trace of CA. Shooting into directly into the sun with this lens is a breeze. This lens is one I nearly always carry with me on field trips."
Now, these lenses will fit to a Canon with a $17 adapter, and focusing is not that hard with 28mm lenses. Some lenses are just LOUSY when shot right toward the setting sun,with a dark field--like in your beach photos for example. A good case--the Nikon 70-200 VR when shot right at the sun can ghost and flare TERRIBLY. Just turns in a total crap performance--too,too many lens elements, and the design just is not good when the sun is right in the shot. Your last shot, of the jump, has the sun OFF TO THE SIDE, which is yet another type of flare or ghosting scenario; now, the sun hitting the front of a lens at a glancing angle is where the new Nano-Crystal coatings truly help things. Canon is using those on some of its very-newest lenses.
If you really,really want to do those kinds of shots with the sun right in the frame, I'm sorry, but the samples you've shown us from the 17-55/2.8 show that it cannot cut the mustard...it's not good when it is shot directly against the light. It does better with the sun just outside the frame, but that is another matter entirely. Like Bjorn's reviews show, there are a select FEW Nikon wides that are superb when shot right toward the light--that is what a prime wide-angle lens,or a prime normal, or some telephoto lenses can typically do better than a zoom lens. The MAJORITY of lenses are worse than they are good. This is a case-by-case basis: some lens models have superb flare and ghosting control when shot toeward the light AND are resistant to glancing light from just outside the frame; other lenses are terrible with the sun in the shot, but good to okay with it outside the shot. If you would like to see the WORST zoom lens maybe ever for ghosting and flare, look at Ken Rockwell's 43-86mm Zoom-Nikkor sample....you'll wanna' gouge your eyes out. Ghosts galore PLUS huge red flares....yeeech...so if you really wish to pursue this type of ski/snowboarding work, you'll need to investigate flare and ghosting tendencies for many lenses to find out the real truth.
