J Boats Co–Founder signs a very special J24 in Howth

by Afloat on 23 May 2014 Back in the days of bespoke yachts, when a qualified naval architect had finally finished a new design to his satisfaction, he'd sign off on the drawings writes W M Nixon.

Whether or not the contracted boatbuilder then adhered strictly to the plans was another matter. Often, any changes had to be counter-signed by designer and builder alike. But when it worked, it was a nice gentlemanly arrangement, in keeping with the times when boats were one-offs.

With today's production boats, there may well be a designer's or builder's signature somewhere on the finished product, but it will either be moulded-in, or machine-inscribed on an affixed metal plate. Any truly personal touch has long since gone. Yet now J/24 owner Emmet Dalton, Honorary Sailing Secretary of Howth YC, has obtained a uniquely personal signature on his boat's rudder which means that one particular small but precious area of his beloved sailing machine will never be cleaned off, sanded down, or re-painted, for it's a tangible reminder of the very special human and American story which underlies the origins of the mighty J Boat empire.

The story begins in 1975. Rod Johnstone, then an ad salesman for a sailing trade magazine and an active one-design sailor, decided to build a sailboat he had been designing since completing a Westlawn School of Yacht Design correspondence course in the 60's. With $400-worth of fibreglass and wood, plus some rigging and hardware left over from a Soling of his brother Bob, he built the 24' LOA x 9' beam Ragtime on weekends in the three-car garage at his family home in Stonington, Connecticut. During the summer of 1976, with an all family crew aboard, Ragtime beat everything in sight. Rod realized he had created something special.

Enter Everett Pearson, the owner of Tillotson Pearson, Inc, a highly respected boat builder in Warren, Rhode Island. He was quite taken with Rod's design and agreed to produce the boat on spec in return for the U.S. building rights. Display ads in the sailing trade magazine got the word out. That winter, they set up a makeshift factory in an old textile mill in nearby Fall River, Massachusetts, and began popping out J/24s.

Enter the marketing experience of brother Bob, a vice president of marketing at AMF-Alcort (the makers of Sunfish sailboats at the time). He had seen the potential in the boat Rod had designed. From 1975 to 1977, Bob had helped to take Alcort from the red into the black, and then began trying to convince AMF to start producing a boat similar to the J/24. When AMF didn't jump, in February of 1977 at age 43, Bob did, and threw in his lot with J/Boats.

In all, 5,400 J/24s have been built since, plus hundreds and sometimes thousands of other designs. It has been another case of the phenomenal commercial and creative power of American brothers working together. Think Gougeon Brothers with West Epoxy Systems, for instance, a company so successful that when the brothers retired, they handed it over to their employees as a very tangible way of saying thanks. And think too of Olin and Rod Stephens of designers Sparkman & Stephens. They were very much a team, and it was Rod's skill and ingenuity with rigs and rigging which persuaded the great Carleton Mitchell to transfer his design loyalties from Philip Rhodes to Olin Stephens, resulting in the 38ft Finisterre which won the biennial Bermuda Race three times on the trot.

The Johnstone brothers are from the same sort of background, and with the global nature of the modern marine industry, such people are almost Godlike in our maritime world. So when the word got out that Bob Johnstone was recently visiting Howth to meet Irish J/24 President Flor O'Driscoll and see for himself the location of the memorable J/24 Worlds 2013, there was quite a fluttering in the dovecote. The opportunity was too good to miss. Emmet Dalton's J/24 Jebus is a very special boat. She was J/191 out of the moulds in America, and made with extra-special care in 1978 as she was then sent to Italy to be the plug for a new European J/24 construction facility, a plant which in its turn enabled the J/24 international expansion, and a setup which the brothers could call their own.

So Jebus got the very special autograph with an indelible pen, and life in Howth returned to normal. Bob Johnstone and his wife were actually holidaying in Ireland with the President of the International J/24 Association, Robin Eagleson of Lough Erne YC. And it emerged that Mrs Johnstone is a minister of the American Episcopalian Church. Had they got to Cork, they could have exchanged notes with another sailing clergyperson, Paul Colton, the Bishop of Cork. And of course in the north, the Archbishop of Armagh, Robin Eames, has been so keen on sailing that he has had boats built by Chris Boyd, the Puppeteer man, one of them being a Puppeteer 330 called Nido, which is Odin spelt backwards.

Make of that what you will. For now, with Jebus and her signature, sailing has a new sacred relic.