Voted Best One-Design Overall(Middletown, RI)- The sweet spot for J/Boats has always been the 30-foot range, and in years past they’ve had great runs with models like the J/29, the J/30, and the J/105. To meet the demands of owners today to be able to haul and store themselves, the team at J/Boats has come up with a design that’s more versatile than any models before it. It’s not revolutionary, the judges say, but when it comes to practicality, it’s perfect. At roughly 5,000 pounds, the J/88 has a deck-stepped rig and a single-point lift so it can be hauled with a hoist and parked in the driveway— or put on the interstate for the occasional class championship.
The
J/88 was originally conceptualized as a daysailer, says J/Boats
president Jeff Johnstone, but that market got overpopulated so they
seized an opportunity to revisit their range with a design that
Johnstone says is a “family boat with high-performance traits.”“The stability and sailing comfort are right there,” says Chuck Allen. “They really got this one right. It’s big enough, yet small enough, to do a lot with. For a boat its size, there’s a big interior, a really comfortable cockpit, and there’s nothing intimidating about it. Upwind, the thing just locks into a nice groove. It practically sailed itself.”
Tom Rich praised the quality continuing to come out of Bristol’s CCF Composites (also the J/70 builder). “I think it’s an incredibly well built boat,” says Rich. “There’s nothing negative we can say about it.” (Editor’s note- this is as strong an endorsement as one can imagine since Tommy is Founder/President of NEB Boatworks in Portsmouth, RI- builders of super high-tech, all carbon/ epoxy/ foam boats like Ken Read’s Volvo 70 PUMA- MAR MOSTRO and Hap Fauth’s Mini-Maxi 72 BELLA MENTE). Please read the rest of the Sailing World 2014 J/88 Boat of the Year article here.
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