Tiwal 2L review: Oliver from St Albans – England

My first name is Oliver and I live in St. Albans, just north of London.

Which Tiwal model do you have?

We have a Tiwal 2L family sailing dinghy and we’ve had it for two and a half years maybe.

Where do you sail?

We keep our Tiwal on our yacht on the south coast of England, so it comes with us and we sail it in and around The Solent, down to the kind of Cornwall and the West country in the UK.

Single-handed or double-handed?

Many configurations so we have three children from age 16 to 10, myself and my wife we all sail it either by ourselves or with two people on it, sometimes three, sometimes four and in around the kind of mooring and the anchorages that we’ve anchored the boat in.

Because it’s inflatable, you can crash it but if you’re in an anchorage as we often are and you have young children learning to sail, it doesn’t really matter if they hit other boats, or our boat certainly doesn’t make any difference so as a way as a learner boat it’s actually really good.

How is it going so far?

Really good and we really enjoy it. It’s been a boat that the younger, my younger child has learned to sail on. The older two children that could sail already so they’ve really enjoyed it.

For anyone that has a bigger boat, anybody who is short on space but wants to be able to sail… I do think it has been a really fantastic addition to what we’re able to do, and it’s very easy to set up and get going with, so I think it’s fantastic.

What characteristics surprised you?

It sails better than I thought it would.

I think I kind of accepted that in buying an inflatable boat I was expecting there to be some compromises obviously, but it’s actually very easy to handle, it’s quite fast, it’s quite quick in the right conditions. I think it’s very responsive to sail as well.

So I think it’s been better than I thought it would be!

What is your best memory with your Tiwal?

Probably, the days where we’ve had lots of people on the boat, so other families with us and people have been kind of zipping in and around with the Tiwal, and paddle board and stuff having a really great time in the water. Mainly the kids, I guess. The best memory is the kids using it.

Where would you dream to sail with your Tiwal?

Somewhere warmer, I guess somewhere where the water where the water is not muddy and cold Mediterranean maybe or the Caribbean, be a long way to take it though.