I had two reactions when I received a review copy of Seawater & Sawdust, Two pensioners build a wooden boat by Lorraine Owen and Tom Owen. “Wow, look at that beautiful boat on the cover!” was my first. Immediately after that, I wondered, “Why would anyone want to build their own boat?”

The why lies with the dreams of Tom, “a waterborne hippie,” and Lorraine, the “aging rock chick” who loved him. She knew he’d started boat building at the age of 14; he knew she’d never been on a small boat before. Yet their lives meshed and Lorraine took to the water “like a duck,” enjoying holiday’s on Tom’s crafted vessel, Selene.

After selling Selene, Lorraine joined Tom in building another sailboat, Early Mist. He enjoyed it thoroughly while she found it a “sticky, smelly, and itchy” process.

As the couple approached their sixties, both were no longer thrilled being “wet, cold, and sometimes frightened” during open cockpit sailing. They wanted to explore closer to shore and have a good time with fellow boaters, so their thoughts turned to a motorboat.

While Lorraine knew that there wasn’t a mass-produced vessel that would satisfy Tom, she proclaimed she wasn’t in the mood to spend her retirement clad in dirty overalls inside an uncomfortable boat shed, watching their bank account dwindle like an outgoing tide. She hoped that Tom’s desire to design the perfect cruising vessel would instead float away.

However, there wouldn’t be a book unless Lorraine finally embraced Tom’s idea. She gave up “all the things that women of my age are meant to do,” and signed on for a 20-month build of their 30-foot motorboat, Thea.

Besides being hands on, Lorraine also chronicled the vessel’s progression from Tom’s design to Thea’s launch. Seawater & Sawdust often provides painstaking details, such as cutting teeth for a very long saw to drill the stern tube and epoxy resin versus contact adhesive. I’ll admit that frames, laminates, finishes, and skin fittings are not my reading topics of choice, but that didn’t slow me down here. The book not only has enough photos to show what everything is and where it went, but Lorraine’s running commentary about their lives while Selene was being built is very entertaining. (If you like a good construction story, however, this book doesn’t disappoint!)

At many points, I became more caught up in Lorraine’s aching hip (and subsequent surgery), the Rod Stewart concert, the merits of a kettle, and Tom’s “bubbly” leg wound than I did in the hunt for portholes and finding the ideal dinghy davits. Life certainly didn’t stop for this couple while Thea progressed, making Seawater & Sawdust an entertaining read for boat and narrative lover alike.

Read an excerpt from Seawater & Sawdust:

Chapter 10

Wow—a wheelhouse!

Late September–October 2015

Launch day minus fourteen and a half months

In which…

• The wheelhouse is built
• Shiny things are bought
• The cockpit is roughed out

Tom is starting on the satisfying job of finishing the construction of Thea’s wheelhouse. We are using solid iroko for the window frames and the door frame as varnished iroko gives a fair imitation of teak, without the expense. When the construction is finished all the hardwood of the wheelhouse will be coated with layers of epoxy on the outside, and then varnished. The epoxy we are using is not UV resistant, and needs to be overcoated with paint or varnish to protect it.

The port and starboard wheelhouse sides are machined and assembled off the boat, and then fitted on top of the existing plywood sides. Once these are finished, the window frames and the door frame for the back of the wheelhouse are fitted.

The next move is to fit the remaining laminated beams to form the framework for the wheelhouse roof. The last, but not the easiest, task is to work out the geometry for the three front screens, the middle one of which will be an opening fly window and then, of course, to build and fit them.

The wheelhouse door is also machined and assembled, but not fitted at this point as we still need good access into the wheelhouse for engine installation and for moving other gear around.

Now we can skin the wheelhouse roof with plywood. This is another job where a small amount of effort brings visually spectacular results. It is a big roof, and will eventually house the handrails, navigation lights and a large solar panel. We extend the roof over the front screens, rather like a baseball cap peak. This will provide shade for the instruments around the helm and avoid them getting cooked by direct sunlight. Similarly, the roof extends some 2 feet over the cockpit to provide shade and shelter. Though, of course, the wheelhouse is still in an unfinished state, we are getting a very good idea of how Thea will look, and we are thrilled.

© Tom & Lorraine Owen