Tiwal 2: Kevin from Marblehead, MA

Kevin. I live in Marblehead, Massachusetts. We’ve been living here for about 24 years. Before that, I lived all over the world.

How long have you had your Tiwal?

We’ve only had it for about 7 weeks, 8 weeks. And we have the smaller one, I don’t remember what the model number is… It’s a Tiwal 2 sailing dinghy.

Where do you sail?

We sail in Coastal New England, my wife and I spent 20 year racing, and about 5 years ago we started cruising and so we go all over from Connecticut all the way up to Maine.

How do you use your Tiwal?

The plan is to eventually put it on the cruising boat and take it with us cruising. We are in between cruising boats, so we bought it this summer, in anticipation of the new boat and it is ah… we keep it in our yard, and my wife and I can carry it down and launch it. It’s about 50 meters from our back porch to the ocean, and so mostly it has been used for fooling around the harbor.

We did loan it to our neighbors who have decided that they’re going to take their kids down to the Caribbean, because there is no school here now. And they took it down to Cuttyhunk for two weeks and had two kids and a dog and they just had a ball!

How is it going so far?

It is great. We started as big boat sailors so this is our first little boat so it is a little bit different because it doesn’t have any carry to it, so either you’re moving or you’re stopped. So if the wind is light it is pretty easy to stop the thing. But we love the boat, it’s very cool. Both of us get on it, which it’s only supposed to be one adult and one child, but we can both fit and it’s extremely comfortable.

Which characteristics did surprise you?

I’m not sure that I was surprised by anything, I think the construction is fantastic. All the hardware is what a real sailor would want. It’s not junky, it’s really well put together, I think it’s going to be very durable and so no big surprise, it’s a beautiful boat.

What’s your best memory with your Tiwal?

We haven’t been on it that much, I will tell you the memory that I have the most is: My wife and I went out and then the wind died, and then it kind of shifted and coming into our little harbor it was dead against the wind and the entrance is very narrow. So light breeze, against the wind, against the tide, we decided to swim it in because it was going to take us forever. Well… So we swam for about half an hour beside the boat pulling it in!