Richard Cooper Newick

Richard "Dick" Newick (May 9, 1926 in Hackensack, New Jersey – August 28, 2013 in Sebastopol, California)[1][2][3] — more frequently known as Dick Newick — was a multihull sailboat designer.

He grew up in Rutherford, New Jersey.[2] At 10 he built two kayaks with his father and brother.[2] At 12 he designed and built two more by himself.[2] At 14 he sold kayak plans to a schoolmate for $5.[2] After school he spent some time in the United States Navy and earned a degree from the University of California, Berkeley.[2] He ran a boat shop, worked charitably with Quakers in Mexico, then explored Europe by kayak.[2] He sailed to St. Croix in the United States Virgin Islands where he met and married his wife Patricia Ann Moe.[2] They lived in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts and Kittery Point, Maine and had two daughters, Lark Blair and Valery Wright, both of whom have boat designs named after them.[2]

He believed in reincarnation, and said he had been a Polynesian boat builder in a previous life.[2] He lauded simplicity of design,[2] safe seagoing performance,[1] aesthetics,[1] and speed under sail.[2][4]

Newick was at the forefront of the 1960s revival of multihulls, helping to reform their aesthetic and influencing later designs such as the AC72.[2] He was inducted into the North American Boat Designers Hall of Fame in 2008.[2]