The sketchbook is named after an inscription on f.46v, which is difficult to read. Turner used the phrase 'Marine Dabblers' as the title of one of his Liber Studiorum plates (R.29) published in 1811; it has no connection with the present sketchbook, which contains a number of small pencil drawings of figures and boats by the sea and one bedroom scene (f.79v) which is rather similar in subject to the supposed 'Scene at a Play' (T.B.CCCXVIII-17). The resemblance is no doubt accidental.