The build begins with
the hull upside down
The wheelhouse roof
beams are slotted inThe fi nished hull is turned
and put back in the shedT
he mere mention
of home-built boats
makes thoughts
turn to moth-eaten
amateur fi t-outs of
1970s Colvic hulls,
interiors a square-cut plywood testimony
to the jigsaw-wielding builder’s triumph
of enthusiasm over ability. But every so often you discover a
gem – a boat built with real talent, unerring love and phenomenal
dedication. Thea is the latter, and that home-built status goes far
deeper than a hull and deck fi t-out. Tom and Lorraine Owen built
this boat completely from scratch. They even built the shed at
Premier Marina’s Noss facility in which to begin construction.
Entirely self taught, Tom’s history of boatbuilding goes right
back to his childhood. At the age of 12, he built himself a punt
out of hardboard and at 16, he converted a small clinker-built
boat, adding a cabin and wheelhouse and fi tting an engine taken
from an Austin 7.
“I used to go fi shing at Cardiff Docks in the 1960s,” says Tom.
“There were a huge number of derelict boats just lying in the mud
and I felt that it must be possible to do something with them. It
was all done on a shoestring – I was still at school when I had my
fi rst boat. It’s just been a sequence of boats thereafter. I went from
a 17-footer to a 28-footer to a 34-footer.”Most of these boats were derelict, and
the fi rst proper boat Tom owned was a
Golden Hind 31 yacht that he bought in- It had been written off after sinking
on its moorings. After rebuilding it, putting
a new bottom into it and getting it up to
scratch, Tom sailed it to the Mediterranean – quite an adventure,
especially considering the lack of radio or navigation equipment.
Tom has owned many boats since then, most early ones bought
as near wrecks or insurance write-offs and renovated. He also built
an Elizabethan 33 which he bought as a hull and deck and fi tted
out. At the time, he was, by his own admission, “slumming it,”
living aboard the boats that he’d rebuilt. He describes himself
as a waterborne hippie.
It was a lifestyle that changed when he met Lorraine in 1981.
“The hair was the fi rst thing to go,” laughs Lorraine. The couple
got married a year later and bought a cottage in Galmpton, close
to the River Dart, Tom having relocated to south Devon on his
way to the Med with the Golden Hind in 1975. “We still live
there,” says Tom. “Too busy building boats to want to move!”
THE PLANNING STAGES
With interest rates running at 15%, Tom and Lorraine were both
working fl at out just to pay the bills, Tom doing ad-hoc boat
repairs and Lorraine in an offi ce job. They still had the ElizabethanHOME-BUILD PROJECT