The Boat Builder is a 2015 American independent drama film directed by Arnold Grossman and starring Christopher Lloyd and Jane Kaczmarek.

Abner Green, an unsociable elderly former sea-captain, lives in an old house and trailer by the shores of San Francisco, and is largely shunned and ridiculed by the locals.

Due to Abner's being deeply embittered by the cancer-caused death of his wife many years earlier, however, he is unwilling to either listen to or accept Katherine's concerns or advice.

He also cautions Rick about how an ocean voyage can be both relaxing and terrifying, with the dangers of sinking in a storm, starving to death if one's craft fails to reach land as soon as planned, and so on.

Having already once been confined to a home for delinquents in the past --- and received extremely abusive treatment there --- Rick tells Abner that he would rather run away than be sent to such an intolerable place again.

On the morning of the scheduled demolition, the bulldozer and city workers show up, along with the press and a number of protesting citizenry in support of Abner.