Tiwal 2L review: Annette and Bill, from Chicago – IL

We’re Bill and Annette, we live in Chicago but also have a home in Wisconsin where we do the bulk of our sailing.

Which Tiwal model do you have ?

We’ve had a Tiwal 2L family sailing dinghy for about 5 months.

Where do you sail ?

We sail in southern Wisconsin on a couple of lakes called like Nagawika and Nemahbin, Pewaukee, those types of names and those types of lakes. They’re smaller Inland Lakes, they’ve been very good for us.

It’s a boat that moves quite well even when we’ve been in light wind. And even when we’ve been in stronger wind because of the size of the lake.

What was your experience before Tiwal ?

We had very little. I used to sail on Inland Lakes when I was young in my teenage years, so I knew a little bit about sailing. My husband knew nothing, we had taken some sailing lessons before on Lake Michigan for larger boats, but we like being able to just go out and putter around and have an easy setup experience.

So we had very minimal experience sailing, and I think we adapted pretty quickly to how the boat handled and have really enjoyed what we’ve been able to do.

Single-handed or double-handed?

It’s usually the the two of us, we haven’t tried it solo and we haven’t tried it with anyone else.

How is it going so far?

Pretty good, we enjoy it, the boat handles very well. I’m an inexperienced sailor, so I rely on my wife’s expertise, but we’re enjoying it very much so far this first summer. It has been easy to learn and easy to learn to navigate and we’ve enjoyed it.

How was the first handling with your Tiwal?

We practiced putting the sails up a couple of times before we went out, so we understood the rigging. And I don’t think anything really surprised us. It all worked very well.

What is your best memory with your Tiwal?

Possibly the first time that we got it in the water we got it launched and going so past the experience of a little bit of what are we doing and getting it into the water and realizing how quickly it does go even in pretty light winds, and pretty easy to maneuver.