Tiwal 3 review – Michael, from Newton, MA

Michael and I live in Newton, Massachusetts.

Which Tiwal model do you have?

I have the Tiwal 3 small sailboat, for about four years.

Where do you sail?

We’ve been in lakes in Upstate New York and Massachusetts, where we live and the Hudson river outside of New York City.

We have not yet been on the ocean, but we’ve very much enjoyed it.

What was your experience before Tiwal?

I grew up sailing a Sunfish and a Sailfish in lakes in the Adirondacks for my whole childhood, and we owned Sunfish and we brought it around on a trailer you know.

It was quite the ordeal a lot of fun but a much bigger deal than the Tiwal which allows us to just sail on a whim and go from lake to lake without doing the whole trailer thing. It allows us to store it on the house much more easily.

Our kids are now out of the house and so we can get it in and out of the car much more easily than a bigger boat. But yes, my childhood was sailing the smaller boats and now I also have a certification to sail some bigger boats too.

Single-handed or double-handed?

Typical session I would say is me and my wife or possibly one of my kids and our dog.

He loves water, he loves sitting, standing, he loves healing, he’s very skilled on a boat.

How is it going so far?

It’s great!

We have gotten the setup very quick I think we’re in a 20 minutes range or so to get it in the water.

Which characteristics did you surprise you?

I think I expected it to feel a little more flimsy on the water and a little more kind of temporary. But it’s quite firm and solid and secure feeling, which I didn’t expect.

What is your best memory with your Tiwal?

Honestly, for me it’s when the wind picks up and it’s crazy. And so we were out on a huge lake, lake Winnipesaukee in the middle of Pennsylvania. It must have been a six-hour day. And initially some wind, and then no wind, and just a beautiful slow quiet day. And then the sky darkened and there was a storm coming, there must have been, you know, 30 mph gusts, and we were holding on.

My wife was holding the dog and it started pouring rain, and we were whipping around all over the place, but we had total control the entire time.

We were going very fast and we made it to shore and held on to someone’s dock until the storm passed and then we finished the trip home. So it was both the scariest but also, I thought, the most fun.

Where would you dream to sail with your Tiwal?

Your videos on the ocean are pretty amazing. So I’d love to go where there’s a little bit faster water. And actually, as I’m saying that I was on the ocean, I forgot we took it to Martha’s Vineyard, which is an island off of Boston, there some relatively flat ocean, where people do kiting and it was incredibly fast on that but yeah the higher the winds and the faster I can go, that’s my dream for using it in the future.