Ah...the Kansas prairie. A land of wide-open spaces that evokes images of cattle drives, farmers on tractors, wheat fields, and the world-renowned Dorothy and Toto. This isn’t the type of place I would have thought to look for an example of designer Dick Newick’s Tremolino, a fast and futuristic-looking trimaran. Yet, on a quiet reservoir known as Cheney Lake just south of Wichita, BLUE MOON quietly awaits—poised for speed. Who’d ’a’ thunk it?The Wichita area is a hotbed for aerospace technology. That may explain the high-tech-looking trimarans and catamarans that abound on Cheney Lake. Now we know how rocket scientists have their fun. It took BLUE MOON’s builder and owner, Lew Enns, and his good friend, Tom Welk (neither of whom is a rocket scientist), several years of part-time work to complete her. Their hard work paid off, though; she’s head-and-shoulders above the rest on Cheney Lake.Please don’t send letters. This truly is a handmade wooden boat. While she may look like something out of science fiction, there’s much less new technology at work here than one might guess. In fact, its core technology has been around for millennia.
Read this article now for Free!
Ready for a second free article? Create a free account by entering your email address and a password below.
— OR —
Subscribe now for $29.99 a year and have immediate access to all of our content, including hundreds of small-boat profiles, gear reviews and techniques, adventure stories, and more! You can also browse our entire archive of back issues starting from September 2014, as well as post unlimited classified ads. This is an extraordinary value!
I have two of these fantastic boats and both are for sale.
I was looking for one of these. Are yours for sale?
I always wanted a Newick Trimaran and corresponded with Newick several times. I was at the Gougeon Brothers shop several times while they were building Rogue Wave and saw her, finished, sitting quietly on the banks of the Saginaw River awaiting delivery. I have a copy of Nautical Quarterly 2 which has a long feature article on Newick and his career and later a long section on Rogue Wave. God knows what it would cost to get one today.
I also own Nautical Quarterly No.21 with a feature article on Phil Bolger and his boats, several letters with Bolger and Harold Payson, and several Bolger books. There are no Newick books, alas. I built two Bolger boats, a Teal and a June Bug. The June Bug building involved a tech at the Gougeon Brothers and humorous exchange. The short version is it wound up being built of 1/4 inch luan and has no fasteners left in the hull. Two Bolgers and no Newicks is an indication of my construction prowess.
The only thing about this boat that bothers me is the lack of usable space; the akas are at such a steep angle, the trampolines are almost useless, and the front/rear cabins cannot be used either (unless you want to slide off into the ocean). I would feel claustrophobic (trapped?) in this boat.