Rod Johnstone
King of the Hill

I think it is accurate to say that One Design is what made J-Boats in the beginning with the J-24, and clearly with what has happened with the J-80,105 and 120, it is what is making J-Boats bigger than ever. Yet a number of your boats have not had great acceptance, from a OD perspective. Was there a time, before the 80, 105 and 120, when you didn't feel that the OD approach would again be successful on any real scale?

J-105

RJ
No. One design success depends on selling enough boats of one type to achieve "critical mass" so that one design racing can occur in various locations. This happened with all of our earlier designs such as the J/30, J/29, J/22, J/35, and J/27. All these boats are still actively raced in 2001. We are still building new J/24s and J/22s. We started to come out with larger purpose-built cruising boats starting with the J/40 in 1985, but have always believed that the best racing is OD. Boats like the J/40, J/34c, J35c, J37, J/28 were designed for the cruising market, where most owners do not race. While we focused on cruising boats in the late 1980s, we continued to focus on OD fleet development in all the one design classes mentioned above. Even the J/44 has been a great one design success, despite the fact that we only sold 67 of them. They have an active one design schedule in Long Island Sound, and their own start in the Newport-Bermuda Race, Block Island Race Week and other offshore events. The enthusiasm of owners coupled with waning interest in handicap racing has helped. The "OD approach" will always be successful unless we can figure out how to make handicap racing better.

Yet, you can't possibly have anticipated, for example, the explosive success of the J-105. Given that it is a fairly basic 34' without standing headroom and a price of approximately $150,000 all up, tell us what hull number you are at with this boat, and how you explain this particular phenomenon.

J-120

RJ
The J/105 is successful as a One Design many reasons: J/105 is the first offshore OD class with asymmetric spinnaker/retractable bowsprit, which means only one person is required to jibe the spinnaker instead of five. It is the first offshore boat with top-end spinnaker reaching speeds of 15-20 knots under total control with shorthanded crew. It is one of the fastest ever 35 footers upwind in heavy wind with only five people aboard. The J/105 is thrilling in heavy air without being scary. 970 Lb crew limit means a max crew of 5-6. OD sail limits of low-tech main, roller furling jib, and small spinnaker take the expense and complexity out of racing. Big-boat sailors have been forced into racing on short windward-leeward courses in most significant handicap racing. This requires numerous crew on most boats over 30'. Not so on the J/105. The standard dodger over a huge companionway hatch makes this a comfortable weekend cruiser for two with the dodger up. If there is no wind, you can always crank up the 18HP Yanmar diesel. There is not a more comfortable daysailer anywhere. The J/105 is a very practical boat and represents the way that most people sail. A new J/105 all -up in the water is $135,000 to $150,000 depending on options selected. We have sold 515 J/105s as of October 1, 2001.

J-Boats have clearly gone very upscale. Was this a strategic move that mirrored the prosperity of the economy?

RJ
We have always tried to provide the best built and the best performing sailboat whenever we come out with a new design. The technology , materials, and hardware to achieve this will always be more expensive. We try to give the most bang for the buck by getting the basics right and keeping things simple and easy to manage and maintain. Our new boat designs are influenced by our anticipation of what sailors might buy based on ups and downs in the economy.

Upscale of course means expensive. One of my biggest complaints about our sport is just how expensive it is. Given the financial, production and marketing might of J-Boats, will you ever make an effort to build a less-expensive range of sport boats for the middle class masses?

J-125

RJ
We are working on such a boat right now. Whether we produce it will depend on whether the performance of the prototype (which we are now testing) meets our performance expectations, and whether we hit the pricing targets given the building techniques and materials we plan to use. We have not come up with all the answers by any means. Boats are expensive. A new J/24 in 2001 costs about the same as a new Volvo Station Wagon. This has been the case since we introduced the J/24 in 1977.

Though you didn't pioneer it, you have made the sprit boat synonymous with your company. Is it inevitable that all boats, and not just yours, will be runner-less, simple, light and sprited?

RJ
No. But it sure is a great way to sail, and the increasing awareness of that fact is yet another reason for the accelerating popularity of the J/105 and the J/80.

I think your boats, particularly the latest ones, have always had good aesthetics. Yet some have questioned your design pedigree. Have you ever considered having an outside designer draw your boats?

J-145

RJ
No. What is a design pedigree, but a record of what one has designed? A designer is only as good as his last design. I love designing boats, but good designs to not happen in a vacuum, so I cannot take all the credit. I get plenty of help from my son, Alan Johnstone, who has been an integral part of every J Boat design since 1985, and will ably step in as my successor. Alan is the lead designer on the J/32 and the new J/109, and is the autocad and computer expert in J Boats, who also is responsible for creating and maintaining the J Boats web site. Every J Boats design also gets critiqued, hashed out, and modified by the marketing department (my partner and brother, Bob Johnstone), by the President (my son Jeff Johnstone), and by the Sales Manager (my nephew, Jim Johnstone). We also get important input from the builder and our dealers. It is a team effort. A good design is a product of careful synthesis and coordinated talent, and lots of sailing experience and building know-how. There is no light bulb that goes off in someone's head lighting up some creation of spontaneous genius. Science just does not work that way.

In some ways, the J-125 is a superior boat to the Farr 40, although I think in fairness, each boat was drawn with different goals in mind. Yet the Farr 40 has far outsold the 125. Why do you think that is? And in retrospect, what would you have done differently from either a design or marketing perspective to get the market share that the Farr boat did?

J-24 worlds

RJ
The differences in the designs might answer the question. The Farr 40 is well-suited for "grand prix" day racing up and down wind around short courses, emphasizing boat handling and crew kinetics. Its huge sail plan, tall fractional rig with big main and small jib, IMS-derived hull shape, and wider beam is most suitable for inshore racing. The J/125, on the other hand, is designed for shorthanded sailing offshore. It can be sailed close to its speed potential with the big asymmetric spinnaker doublehanded. It is more suited for long distance and point-to-point racing because it is faster than just about anything when reaching in any breeze. We would have to change our design approach away from that of combining high speed with ease of short-handed sailing in order to appeal to the Farr 40 market, which is driven by professional sailors and their owner/sponsors. It is a market that J Boats has never tackled head-on, even though most of the pros involved are present or former J/24 champions.

J-160

The world of big boat handicap racing in the states has by default, been thrown into the inadequate clutches of PHRF, yet many owners find this an unacceptable form of handicapping. Despite the current one design mantra, some still wish to race handicap for various reasons. With IMS history and Americap not understood, is there a more satisfactory direction handicap racing can go?

RJ
Handicap racing should get away from the short-course windward-leeward races which only makes sense for heavy displacement one-design boats that always reach at the same speed.. How many sailors really want to beat themselves up in big boats going around buoys on one or two mile legs?. This requires teamwork of a high order - something which most sailors have neither the time nor inclination to put together. The expense for such an efforts in places like Key West is mind-boggling to most of us. Single handicap point-to point racing with predetermined courses allows nature to provide the variety which makes sailboat racing more interesting and fun for those who cannot spend full time at it. The whole issue of professionals in sailboat racing would be less of an issue if straight boat speed replaced maneuvering and boat handling as the primary requirements for success. Longer legs, less buoy roundings, and eliminating the requirement for starting to windward would make the racing scene more interesting and more popular with the average sailor, although probably not with those who make their living racing sailboats. Modern sailboats can be handicapped objectively and accurately, using simple measurement terms based on real "speed factors". But it has not happened yet for many reasons, which I will not go into here.

Fleets and Classes come and go, and with the exception of the Farr 40, there has never really been a successful big boat one design. Might we one day soon, see a J-50 - a light, powerful, simple and perhaps, relatively inexpensive (touchy ground, I know) one design to fill a gap where the IMS 50's, 1D 48's and Corel 45's failed?

J-46

RJ
You could argue that the J/44 is the only successful big boat offshore one design, because it is the only class that has its own start in major offshore races. What's the point of "big" if you are only thrashing around a windward-leeward course with short legs in protected waters? In this scenario the best boat design tends to be too specialized to be optimal in any other context. Where boat handling precision, acceleration out of tacks, and buoy roundings are most important, smaller boats are more fun. The constituency for doing this in 50 footers must be mighty small and very focused.

Who are your biggest competitors and why?

RJ
This is a loaded question, the answer to which depends on which of our J Boat models you are talking about. We do not see the competition in terms of companies, but in terms of boats. For instance, the new J/46 competes with several other offshore cruising boats from several companies, as does the J/32 with several other cruisers that size. We expect our new J/109 (35'), now being built in France, will have to compete with X Yachts in the cruiser /racer market in Europe, because they have a couple of models that appear to be aimed at that market. We are not certain who the competition for that boat will be in the US. As for the J/105 and J/80, no other production boat company seems to be trying to do exactly the same thing with any particular boat. Therefore the exact nature of the competition for those boats is harder to identify. As a whole, no other company has the same mix of boat sizes and types of designs available for sale, so competition tends to be more general and indirect.

Describe for us your personal version of the perfect sailboat.

RJ
The perfect sailboat can be easily singlehanded or doublehanded under the most extreme wind and sea conditions. It can achieve close to its maximum speed potential without crew weight on the rail. It is close-winded and stable without the benefit of extreme draft, or moveable ballast of any kind. It planes when reaching or running under spinnaker in a moderate breeze. It can achieve boat speed which exceeds true wind speed in all wind conditions up to ten knots whenever the apparent wind is ahead of abeam. It will be relatively narrow with a compact offshore rig with the masthead spinnaker halyard being only slightly offset above the headstay. It will have simple rigging and sail controls with roller furling jib, no runners or checkstays. It will have an asymmetric spinnaker tacked to a retractable bowsprit. It will have adequate cruising accommodations for unlimited sailing offshore for two people. In general "perfect" has to do with, performance, seakindliness, quality of construction and, and appearance. It will be a simple boat designed to minimize potential maintenance problems. How big? Probably 40-50'.

I put out a call for our listeners to ask you questions if they wished. The response was terrific, and here are just a few of them: With so many successes, what boat (s) was a failure and why?

RJ
Success or failure is measured by different yardsticks. Our biggest flops commercially were the only two boats we designed to a rating rule (IOR): the J/41 in 1984 and the J34 in 1985. Both boats did very well in IOR racing. The J/41 won the top three spots in its debut in the one-ton NAs, and we never sold another one after one of them won the 1985 SORC. It was great PR for J Boats, and proved that we could come up with a production rule beater that could win in the big time, but production sailboats do not belong in the "grand prix" handicap racing market where owners will spare no cost to gain an edge. The lesson? Rating rules do not produce successful production racing boats. If the design sells in big numbers, it will be in spite of the rating rules, not because of them.

Another reader question: What is the next big innovation in sailing that will be commercially acceptable?

RJ
I do not know exactly. I suspect it will be an adaptation of a new technology (which has recently become affordable) to a very old idea as it applies to sailing craft. For instance, the sprit and asymmetric spinnaker have been employed on sailing craft in one form or another for thousands of years. What made it practical on the J/105 and other J Boats since, is the practicality and decreased cost of carbon technology in the 1990s. A carbon pole is light and strong enough to do the job on a modern, light weight sailboat.

Yet another: Will J/Boats ever produce powerboats? I've seen Rod's personal 30' powerboat tool around Newport, R.I., and it has very J/Boat lines...stern has an angle like a J/35, stem is plumb like modern IMS boats.

J-125

RJ
That is a good question which I cannot answer presently. I love my 30' power boat, but even more important, so does my wife Lucia, who works too hard at present to take enough time off to cruise on a sailboat. Lucia and I co-own the "Ripple" as equal partners. It was built by my son-in-law Tom Keating, a master carpenter, and Bob Eger, a boat builder and repairer, in South Berwick, Maine. It is a diesel powered, cold-molded epoxy cruiser with jet drive. It cruises at 18 knots and tops out at 25 knots, and can outmaneuver anything I have ever driven. It also gets about 4 miles to the gallon. It actually looks more like a skinny PT boat with a 1920s style cabin and pilot house. There are no plans to produce it under the J Boats name. If it is ever produced, it will probably be a new company that does so. I am having too much fun designing sailboats to be distracted into running a powerboat company.

Rod, you're a man who has achieved unparalleled success on every front. Where does J-Boats go from here?

RJ
Thanks for the plug. It makes my day. We will keep trying to come up with sailboat designs that are new, better and different. There is always room for improvement in performance, quality and price. There will always be newer and better ways to put boats together, and new developments in materials to make this possible. We just have to stay on top of things and pay attention to what our customers tell us about what they want.

Thanks Rod. We'll be looking for our free one-year lease on the Sailing Anarchy J-105 real soon!

RJ
I don't know about a free lease, but we will take you for a sail whenever you want. As a former display advertising salesman for a monthly boating newspaper, I always got an earful from the editorial department about the importance of the "separation of church and state". Has that all gone out the window?

Yes, we blur every line possible.