Inside the Doug Wright 32-Foot Poker Run Edition
Unless you’re connected—and I mean really connected—to the offshore powerboat-racing scene, chances are good that you’ve never heard of Doug Wright. And even if the name rings a bell, odds are you don’t know why.
Wright builds slippery-fast 32-foot canopied catamarans that are a perennial force, at least with veteran offshore racer Gary Ballough on the throttles, in the X-Cat Class on the Union International Motonautique circuit. But the soft-spoken, South Florida-based builder likes to fly below the radar. He takes a page from the book of Peter Hledin, the famed Skater catamaran builder, and lets his products do the talking.
That’s Wright’s style, refreshing in the go-fast boat world, and it’s not likely to change. But what will change, at least if John Caparell has anything to say about it, is Wright’s name recognition in the recreational high-performance powerboat world. A lifelong go-fast boat enthusiast, the San Diego-based Caparell has worked for more than two years with Wright and others to create the first new pleasure version of his 32-footer.
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