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During the 2024 J/24 US National Championship, held on Fleet #1, founders John Gjerde, Rolf Turnquist, Dale “Dirtball” Anderson and the Wayzata Yacht Club were honored with the J/24 Lifetime Achievement Award, presented by Jeff Johnstone, President of J/Boats. The J/Boats newsletter tells how the J/24 class got started:

In December 1976, a small group of seasoned sailors from Lake Minnetonka, Minnesota, heard about a new 24-foot design that had just dominated the eastern Long Island Sound series in Connecticut. The original RAGTIME had won 15 of 17 races with a crew of mother, father, and four children under the age of 16. The new boat went into production as a one-design. That new boat was the J/24.

John Gjerde and Dale “Dirtball” Anderson called designer Rod Johnstone and peppered him with questions about specs, one-design rules, the builder, you name it. Rod remembers those first conversations and how affirming it was to have such passionate validation of the J/24 and one-design keelboat sailing.

Less than a month later, John Gjerde and Rolf Turnquist partnered and ordered the first boat (hull #7 OZ). Four more were soon ordered, and with an impressive five of the first 25 J/24s ever built, J/24 Fleet #1 was born on Lake Minnetonka.

In 1978, Oz was towed by John, Rolf, and Dirtball to the inaugural J/24 North American Championship (Newport, RI), proudly representing Fleet #1 and the Wayzata Yacht Club. They helped set the tone in the J/24 class for fun, highly competitive racing, and even more fun on land.

In those early years, as the class grew exponentially, most clubs didn’t know what to do: how to deal with non-stop general recalls, how to deal with crews sleeping on their boats and bringing campers, how to deal with sailors hanging around the club all night until the barrels were empty. The J/24 class was more like a rolling Woodstock Music Festival.

Although John and Dirtball are gone, their contributions to the J/24 class and single-design sailing will never be forgotten. Rod Johnstone recalls an early story from John Gjerde that captures the spirit well. After that first season in 1977, John wanted to pick up the pace and invited Rod to Minneapolis in late January 1978 (a few weeks after the first J/24 Midwinters of 1978 in Key West – won by Mark Ploch’s TCHAU with Stu Johnstone as tactician!) to speak to a packed house.

A conference room was booked at a downtown hotel and over 100 people were invited to hear the latest news on the J/24. Rod was stuck at LaGuardia Airport in a snowstorm and couldn’t make it and had to cancel. When Rod spoke to John a few days later, he learned that the party was still going on. Everyone showed up and all night long John, as a joke, proudly wore a name tag that said “Hello, my name is Rod Johnstone.” Fleet #1 doubled in size in 1978!

Wayzata Yacht Club’s adoption of the J/24 fleet in 1977 helped establish a one-design culture that has spawned an impressive number of other recognized one-design fleets in the years since, including J/22 Fleet #1 and J/70 Fleet #2. And now, Wayzata Yacht Club’s Thursday Night Summer Series attracts more than 120 boats with no fewer than seven active one-design fleets.

The inscription on the framed half-model award reads: “In honor of J/24 Fleet #1 founders Dale Anderson, John Gjerde, Rolf Turnquist and Wayzata Yacht Club – for their unwavering support, enthusiasm and lifelong dedication to the J/24 class and one-design sailing.”

Above photo: Andy Spence-Parsons (former Commodore WYC), Rolf Turnquist and Jeff Johnstone received the award (left to right). The inscription reads: “In honor of J/24 Fleet #1 founders Dale Anderson, John Gjerde, Rolf Turnquist and Wayzata Yacht Club – for their unwavering support, enthusiasm and lifelong dedication to the J/24 Class and one-design sailing.”