New Owners Eager To Get First Doug Wright 36 Carbon Waves And Wheels Edition
Although they didn’t get a chance to boat while visiting Lake of the Ozarks in Central Missouri for the first time last week, Southern California performance boaters Jerry and Andrea Olsen have a return trip planned for late June to get out on the popular Midwest waterway. That’s because the couple that calls Arizona’s Lake Havasu its home water is going back to the lake to pick up a new 36-foot catamaran from Doug Wright Powerboats powered by twin Mercury Racing 450R engines—the first 36 Carbon Waves and Wheels edition Doug Wright delivered by the Osage Beach, Mo.-based dealer.
Waves and Wheels owner Justin Wagner, left, and Jerry Olsen spent some time together last weekend going over final details for the build of the first Doug Wright 36 Carbon Waves and Wheels edition catamaran. Photos courtesy Justin Wagner
“Our new 36 Carbon Waves and Wheels edition is coming together great; we can’t wait to deliver it to the Olsens—they’re going to love it,” said Justin Wagner, the owner of Waves and Wheels, Bluave Marine Audio, Graphix 1 Paint and The Boardwalk at Waves and Wheels. “Honestly, we’re eager to show it off. We made several updates to the boat to make it our own, which took some extra time because we ended up creating extra tooling and molds in-house, but it’s ready for paint now and the interior is almost finished.”
Wagner, who said Waves and Wheels is picking up its first 42-foot bare hull from Doug Wright in Melbourne, Fla., early next month and should have it on the water by the end of summer, gave the new owners an “amazing deal on the boat,” according to Jerry Olsen.
“I’ve been following Doug Wright and his boats for 20 years or so,” said Olsen, who has owned several smaller twin outboard-powered catamarans over the years, including an Eliminator 22 Daytona and 21- and 25-foot Liberators. “So when the time came after my company did really well for a few years and I was ready to step up and buy a new boat, I decided to look at a Doug Wright.
“The guys over there told me to call Justin with Waves and Wheels, and that he’d take care of us because he had a boat almost ready to go,” he added. “So I talked to him and he stepped up and made it happen. The timing was great because we were able to choose some of the colors and other finishing touches while we were in town. We checked out the seats, picked out decking for the floor, reviewed next steps for the finishing touches, and made some minor changes to the paint design.”
The team at Waves and Wheels put a lot of work into designing its own windshield for the 36-foot cat.
Olsen said his wife, Andrea, was extremely helpful during the process of choosing colors, fabrics, patterns and more for the interior.
“The team at Waves and Wheels did a great job explaining everything to us,” Olsen said. “My wife left their very happy with the way everything was presented—they put all the materials and fabrics together for us so we could actually touch them, look at them and put them all together. They even had a couple of seats (see image below) built without any upholstery so we got to look at those, which made us even more excited.”
Olsen added that he asked Wagner if there was any way to get the boat finished sooner and that he got a response that increased his respect for Wagner.
“Justin seems like a really stand-up guy and I quickly learned that he seems to follow the same guidelines as I do when it comes to projects: putting something together fast is not necessarily the best solution,” Olsen explained. “I pushed Justin a little to see if he could speed things up and he said, ‘Whoa, whoa, wait a minute—that’s not how we do things around here.’ He told me that his team members would put their heart and soul into the boat without rushing a thing, and I could 100 percent appreciate that.”
Wagner, who also has two 39-foot Doug Wright cats on order, considered himself lucky to have the Olsens as his clients.
“They loved the renderings we had done and were in line with our color selections,” Wagner said. “We only had to change a couple of little things to get the graphics just right for them. They seemed so excited about everything we were doing. They’re super nice people. It’s a total pleasure to build a boat for them.
“Jerry told me that he’d be happy to give demo rides to anyone in California or Arizona who is serious about a Doug Wright,” he added. “That is going to be huge for us.”
Besides breaking the boat in on Lake of the Ozarks before hauling it home, the Olsens don’t anticipate bringing it back to Missouri in the near future. They’ll likely keep it on the West Coast and stick to poker runs closer to home.
“Besides the Mercury power—I’ve always been a Mercury guy—and the overall look of the boat, we’re leaving the rest up to Justin and his team,” Olsen said. “We’re letting them work their magic. They have some big ideas as far as the stereo goes and they’re going with an all-digital dash and a bunch of LED lighting throughout.
“We can’t wait to get the boat,” he continued.
And everyone else can’t wait to see it.
Editor’s note: Speedonthewater.com will provide a follow-up story once the Olsens take delivery of the boat.
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