The Airstream Project Build 

The Airstream Project didn't begin on a drawing board. It started the way the best ideas usually do, over a few friendly yarns with mates and colleagues, a shared passion for Lake Rotoiti, and a growing frustration that nothing on the market came close to doing the lake justice.

The vision was simple but ambitious: design and build a purpose-built vessel that could offer guests a truly immersive experience of everything Lake Rotoiti has to offer. The hidden coves, the geothermal waters, the glow worm caves, the native bush. All of it. Not a generic tour boat. Something completely unique, built specifically for this lake and nowhere else.

So Matt and the team rolled up their sleeves and built it from scratch!

The result is a stunning 9.2-metre classic-style lake cruiser unlike anything you'll find on New Zealand's waterways. The shape, form, and finish draws inspiration from classic 1960s Airstream trailers, WWII aircraft, and Italian speed boats and it shows. Thousands of hand-crafted polished aluminium panels are joined together with solid rivets, curved acrylic windows slide up into the roof, and the exposed internal frames give the interior a sleek, stripped-back aircraft feel that stops guests in their tracks.

But the real magic is in the details. The sides of the vessel fold out, allowing the lounges to pivot over the water, bringing guests right to the very edge of the native bush, hidden caves, and geothermal streams. Close enough to reach out and touch.

The Airstream Project. A one-of-a-kind, floating work of art and, as far as we know, the only vessel of its kind anywhere in the world!