Proving that what comes round, goes around, J/Boats has announced the ‘re launching’ of the J/34. At first we wondered just what the hell was going on but now we get it – sort of. Having over saturated the market with a ‘new’ J/Boat at seemingly every possible length – (22, 24, 27, 28, 29, 30, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 39, 40, 41, 42, 44, 46, 65 and the meter series, 80, 90, 92, 95, 97, 100, 105, 109, 120, 122, 124, 125, 130, 133, 145, 160 – did we leave any out?), it turns out that the lure of IRC and the odd reality that the old IOR J/34 has been determined by the J cognoscenti to be an IRC killer, and hence is going back into production. From J/boats: "There of course will be a few rating tweaks, but the boat will be amazingly similar to the original build, some 25 years ago, allowing existing 34’s to be competitive almost immediately."
We can’t imagine how painful it will be to sail around on one of these pigs just to get a pickle dish, but as J/boats Jeff Johnstone said, "It’s all about marketing, market share, and meeting the demands of the buying public. And with the new 34, we think we’ve got a winner." Bloopers, anyone?
