When Rodney Johnstone designed and built the J/24 in 1976, he ignored convention. Rod wanted to race under the MORC rule, but cared more about speed than rating. He wanted a boat with a dinghy-like feel he could single-hand around the harbor under main alone, then take day racing or overnight with a family crew. He didn't realize that the remarkable accomplishment of his garage-built Ragtime would be to lead a movement toward one-design racing in offshore-style boats.

The J/24 was drawn wit a fair, beamy canoe body and Peterson-style fin keel, and outfitted with four bunks, sitting headroom, a sink and a removable cooler. It never made the grade under the MORC rating formula, which penalized its fractional rig. Then in 1978 Rod and Bob Johnstone enlisted several hot sail makers, held a class midwinter championship and launched the J/24 as the first internationally successful offshore one-design.

Rigged with four winches on a flush deck, and a square transom for its stern-hung rudder and outboard motor bracket, the J/24 neither looked like a midget offshore racer or a traditional one-design. But it exhibited such excellent speed and control, particularly downwind in a blow, that sailors quickly forgot it looked so different.

The J/24's innovative solutions to performance sailboat design and deck layout, combined with a strong balsa-core hull construction, have pointed the way to an entire generation of larger offshore one-design classes and is a precursor to modern generation sport boats.

J/Boats, Inc. has sold more than 5,200 J/24s, built at Tillotson-Pearson in Rhode Island and in Japan, Argentina and Italy.