Tiwal 3 review – Aaron from Boston, MA

I’m Aaron and I live in Boston, Massachusetts.

Which Tiwal model do you have?

I have a Tiwal 3 small sailboat and I’ve had it for about a year now.

Where do you sail?

Coastal Waters mostly, some ponds and just kind of I drive all over New England.

What was your experience before Tiwal?

Generally I sailed 420s I went up a little bit down a little bit you know, all over the place I did a lot of Rhodes 19 sailing actually. I kind of like the midsized end of things and then eventually like I got into quite large classic boats but primarily like 420s and FJs.

I raced for 15 years and then I taught sailing for 10 of those 15 years for like all levels then so sailing dinghies was kind of like how I started and I wanted to go back to it.

Single-handed or double-handed?

All of the above, I’m not afraid to go sailing alone but in most cases I’ll take my partner out with me or my parents, or someone.

How is it going so far?

Wonderful!

I’ve actually so I’ve taught my partner how to sail on the Tiwal. That was the main reason why I bought it.

She could kind of get the feeling for it. She was little afraid of it before, but once she kind of like got going, felt how stable the Tiwal was and how easy it was to control, then she was fine.

Then the added benefit is I get to go to adventurous places and it’s not boring; we’re just sailing in one body of water.

What characteristics surprised you?

Let’s see… a whole list!

I was surprised by the performance. I was really pleased that you could just kind of go.

The weight was kind of the biggest thing. Which I knew, in my head, it was like it’s an inflatable boat, it has metal pieces, it’s gonna be light. But the first place that I went to, I actually had to go downstairs in order to get to the water, and there was like
nowhere to actually inflate the boat once you went down the stairs so everything had to be done up top and then bring the boat down and I was fine doing it and that was the moment that really clicked where I was like: “Oh! I can bring this anywhere, this is great!”

What is your best memory with your Tiwal?

Probably the first time I went out with my partner, it was like it was blowing 8 knots but the breeze was like above the water so there was no swell. The water was like completely glassy, and you were just like sailing along we were going a pretty good clip because of light boat, 8 knots like you’re going to be going a pretty good clip for what it is.

But it was just like a perfect day. I think it was in fall too so it was a complete surprise.

Where would you dream to sail with your Tiwal?

At this point, kind of anywhere! I want to try flying with it, which I know that’s kind of like a weird thing. So A – I want a to go into the middle of the country; I wanna to go to the Minnesota to try sailing it, and then B – I want to go to Europe, like, why not!