Aqua Casa

My older brother Berkeley Eastman designed and built the boat and offered plans for sale. His firm, Berkeley Engineering, also designed and offered plans for a range of mini tugboats. The design brief was to build in the most fun from the least amount of space using readily available materials and a simple design which anyone with basic skills could build. We are a Coast Guard family, and boat building was a way of life growing up. This boat was the prototype for the Aqua Casa 16, and I have had it since 1998. When you see this boat and step aboard you just grin from ear to ear. It is designed for lakes, rivers and protected harbors, not open water. It can also be used as a camp trailer. My wife and I have taken the boat to numerous locations in California–Bass Lake in the Sierras, San Antonio Lake, Lake Shasta, the Sacramento-San Joaquim Delta, the Oakland-Alameda estuary, Half Moon Bay harbor, Tamales Bay, Petaluma, Napa, floated 90 miles down the Sacramento River from Sacramento to Rio Vista, and anchored in McCovey Cove next to Giants stadium the last time they were in the World Series. In Washington, we have transited Lake Chelan to Stehekin at the north end, spent a week on Lake Whatcom in Bellingham, and cruised around Oak Harbor and Penn Cove.