Behind Tisbury Marketplace, in front of the schooner-shed annex of Gannon and Benjamin Marine Railway, the 33-foot power boat Fredric Paulsen was unloaded by the Martha’s Vineyard Shipyard last week. The boat has new owners, partners Athena Eicher and Charles Verbeck, who have worked, respectively, at Gannon and Benjamin Marine Railway in Vineyard Haven and Quisset Harbor Boatyard in Falmouth for the past five years.

In low spots where the boat’s deck, tender from age has drooped, water pools an inch deep. The cabin-top forms two distinct lines where a new section was added to an old one.

“It was a really long process of figuring out whether or not we would take it and getting it here,” Ms. Eicher said of the purchase.

Mr. Verbeck had envisioned a much bigger boat for the couple and their shy but tender, rescue-mutt Cleo.

“I had really wanted this 60-footer I was looking at. In the end it wasn’t feasible,” he said.

Not their first rodeo - couple works at Gannon and Benjamin Marine Railway. — Ray Ewing

“We wouldn’t be able to haul it,” Ms. Eicher said.

F. P., as her new owners call her, was built in Yarmouth, Me. in 1967 by the legendary lobster boat builder and designer Royal Lowell. The construction was traditional, wooden plank-on-frame. She is powered by a small mustard yellow, rust-spotted John Deere diesel. Her shape is reminiscent of larger working boats that earlier in the 20th century dragged for fish and oysters between Maine and the Chesapeake.

There is just enough room for two people to sleep on thick, canvas-covered bunks in the otherwise spartan forward cabin. The counter-top in the wheelhouse fits a stove that can hold one pot.

“It’s a big step up from Towny,” Mr. Verbeck said, of the red micro-schooner the couple owns and has lived on for the past four summers.

Before rebuilding the deck and both cabin-houses of F.P., the couple will have to replace the top plank of the hull. Inferior fastenings have corroded the wood. Where the propeller shaft goes through the back of the boat, the old timber is thoroughly checked.

“You can feel that it kind of moves around in there. Otherwise it’s in surprisingly good shape,” Mr. Verbeck said, thumping the smooth curve of her quarters with his palm.

Athena Eicher and Charles Verbeck have worked on a few boats together. — Ray Ewing

The scope of the project may seem overwhelming, but a year ago the couple finished a similar job, replacing the deck and the cabin-house on a miniature tugboat called Il Vaporetto, which now lives in Woods Hole.

“It took four years,” Ms. Eicher said.

“We sort of said we’d never do it again,” Mr. Verbeck said.

When rebuilding a boat, the hardest part, Ms. Eicher said, is not the long hours in the dark, cold yard, with precious little time and materials. The real test is human: “Probably not getting grumpy with each other,” she admitted.

But the couple has enough experience working together to understand they each have particular skills.

“In the end, we trust each other to do it right,” Ms. Eicher said.