Okay... using a later distribution with a newer wget fixed this:
https://travis-ci.org/azul/gpg-build/builds/203543109

closing. Sorry for the noise.

The same build works locally for me with wget 1.17.1.
travis has 1.13.4

$ wget --version

GNU Wget 1.13.4 built on linux-gnu.

+digest +https +ipv6 +iri +large-file +nls +ntlm +opie +ssl/openssl

Wgetrc:

    /etc/wgetrc (system)

Locale: /usr/share/locale

Compile: gcc -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -DSYSTEM_WGETRC="/etc/wgetrc"

    -DLOCALEDIR="/usr/share/locale" -I. -I../../src -I../lib 

    -I../../lib -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -Iyes/include -g -O2 

    -fstack-protector --param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -Wformat 

    -Wformat-security -Werror=format-security -DNO_SSLv2 

    -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -g -Wall

Link: gcc -g -O2 -fstack-protector --param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -Wformat

    -Wformat-security -Werror=format-security -DNO_SSLv2 

    -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -g -Wall -Wl,-Bsymbolic-functions 

    -Wl,-z,relro -Lyes/lib -lssl -lcrypto -lz -ldl -lz -lidn -lrt 

    ftp-opie.o openssl.o http-ntlm.o ../lib/libgnu.a

Copyright (C) 2009 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html.

This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.

There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

Originally written by Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@xemacs.org>.

Please send bug reports and questions to <bug-wget@gnu.org>.