Murielle Ovenden fulfilled her dream of building a boat, with a little help from area farmers.
Builder spent 20 years constructing 51-ft. boat
James Pascual
Farmers Forum staff
SOUTH MOUNTAIN — Murielle Ovenden has always wanted to build a boat.
She and her husband, Mark, — when they met, he was living on a boat on the Ottawa River — looked for some acreage near Ottawa so that she would have room to work and he would be able to commute to his job. They bought five acres of land at South Mountain, southeast of Kemptville.
That was 20 years ago. She spent the first three years making plans and getting their finances together. Then Ovenden got to work and built a 51-ft. 55,000 lb. fishing boat, styled after the boats she grew up with in Brittany, France. Surrounded by crop and dairy farmers now, she said they were always willing of help, offering their equipment when she needed it. Although the boats looks like wood, it was built with steel.
She hired a trucking company that she says specializes in “tricky things to move” to transport the boat to the Kingston Marina, where Ovenden and her husband had to work fast on the rigging to get everything ready in time for the Brockville Tall Ship weekend festival on June 24.
The couple had lived a few years on a boat they repaired and building one from scratch was Ovenden’s childhood dream. “I’m a sailor at heart,” she said.
A trucking company, specializing in hard-to-move items, was hired to transport the boat to the Kingston Marina.
