J Boats Yachts for Sale

J Boats began in 1977 when Rod Johnstone, who had built a prototype in his garage, went into business with his brother Bob, Rod drawing the boats and Bob selling them. The first was the J/24, and the brothers expected to sell 250 in the first year and sold 750. The company has never owned a factory: it designs the boats and contracts the building out, starting with Everett Pearson at Fall River, Massachusetts, and today with J/Composites in the Vendée in France, which resin infuses the current hulls. Around 10,000 boats have been built across the range, and the family still runs it, with Jeff Johnstone as president and Alan Johnstone drawing the boats.

On the brokerage market J Boats divide into two kinds of buy. The one design classes, the J/24, the J/22 and the J/70 among them, are priced on racing record and sail inventory as much as on condition, and a class legal boat with a good measurement certificate is worth real money more than a tidy one that is not. The larger racer cruisers, the J/40, J/45 and similar, sell to owners who want a boat that is genuinely quick and still has a usable interior, which is a narrower market than a pure cruiser but a loyal one. Age is less of a worry here than on most production sailboats because the boats were built light and stiff and the classes police them, but on anything twenty years old get the keel bolts, keel sump and deck core looked at properly, and budget for sails, which is where the money goes.