Given the place of Doug Wright catamarans in the outboard-engine segment of the go-fast pleasure-boating and offshore racing worlds, most powerboat fans don’t think of them with anything other than outboard power. Still, the company namesake and his son have been considering producing a stern-drive-engine-equipped 44-footer—to the point of creating renderings—for some time

Enter Missouri’s Justin Wagner, the relatively new owner of Doug Wright Powerboat/DWR who founded Waves And Wheels. Like the father-and-son duo, Wagner is a creative thinker who loves new projects. So he set Wright in motion on building the first 44-foot stern-drive cat

The hew model is dubbed the DWR 44.

Said Wagner of the 44-foot stern-drive cat, “It is going to be a complete animal in rough-water—an unstoppable pleasure boat.”

“Doug had the drawing laying around for a while but never put it to good use,” Wagner explained. “We want to build it. After I took ownership of Doug Wright Powerboats, I decided to tackle it as one of our first projects.

“The DWR 44 model is somewhat based around our 42 Doug Wright,” he continued. “It is going to be a complete animal in rough-water—an unstoppable pleasure boat. And there is a potential offshore racing version in the works.”

Though Wagner and his crew had built out Doug Wright cats for a couple of years including rigging them with outboard power before he bought the brand, the Waves And Wheels team has extensive stern-drive-engine installation, rigging and setup experience.

“My pleasure-boat is a 4,000-hp stern-drive cat,” Wagner said, then laughed.

He’s already been working with longtime collaborator Andy Imof of Maryland Offshore Performance Service and graphics man Wes Jones on color schemes for the DWR 44.

“It’s been really going well,” he said. “We’re a great team and I’d like to give a shout out to both of them.”

The first 44 Doug Wright Powerboats/DWR catamaran hull is out of the mold and, according to Wagner, “ahead of schedule.”