johnson j scow sailboat

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• Thread starter mconners
• Start date May 31, 2022
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I am looking to buy a used J Scow made by Johnson Boat Works. Does anyone have any experiance with them that they would like to share? And also what is the difference between them and the Meldes MC Scow. Thank You in advance.  

Melges MC Scow | Melges

I didn’t know Johnson made a J-scow unless that was before. they made MC scows. Anyway they have been out of the building business for some time. Melges is the only builder of MC Scows now. Given all of that trivia, MCs are a blast to sail, planing hull, leeboards, cat rig, and designed to single hand. From what I have seen, new MCs have gotten relatively expensive over the years. I paid about $2000 for my first one eons ago, now a new one could be about ten times that fully equipped.  

jon hansen said: Melges MC Scow | Melges Simple. Stable. Fast. The Melges MC is one of the largest, most popular one-design fleets in North America. The scow design maximizes speed yet provides unmatched stability. melges.com call melges, they will explain. nice people. i have an Ascow Click to expand

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A Scow History

J.O. Johnson, Boat Builder J.O. Johnson was born in Norway in 1875, and orphaned at a very young age.  He was sent off to live with relatives.  At age 14, he worked as a galley boy on a mail and freight delivery schooner up and down the coast.  His future employer, Gus Amundson, while on a visit to his homeland, offered Johnson a job if he ever came to the United States.  In 1893, when he was 18 years old, J.O. Johnson came to his new home in White Bear Lake, Minnesota.

The Early Days For 2 years, J.O. worked for Amundson, building rowboats and traditionally styled displacement sailboats for the inland lakes of Minnesota, but he was more fascinated with boat design than he was with construction.  He was convinced that the displacement sailboats offered too much resistance and began designing a radically different type of sailboat; one that would ride on top of the water, instead of plowing through it.  He proposed this new design to Amundson, who would not hear of it.  If Johnson wanted to build such a boat, he would have to do it on his own time and in his own shop. 

One afternoon, while conversing with one of Amundson’s customers, Johnson “leaked” his idea.  This customer agreed to foot the bill for this new design, just for the fun of putting one over on his friends at the White Bear Yacht Club, the exclusive domain of some of Minnesota’s wealthiest sailors.

The Birth of the “Inland Scow” Overnight, J.O. Johnson became self-employed.  He rented a building on the site where the White Bear Boat Works would stand for over 100 years, and started work on his new design.  At that time, he didn’t know how to draft plans, and this new boat turned out to be 38 feet long with square ends and a centerboard.  Unlike the other deep-hulled, heavy ballasted boats usually raced in inland waters, Johnson’s scow had a radical dish design so it could skim across the top of the water.  A centerboard provided stability. 

When the Yacht Club called one of their regularly scheduled races in 1896, and with a minimum of preparation, Johnson entered his new design.  Johnson’s boat looked so different that all his friends laughed and teased him saying, “It looks like a slice of bread” and “It looks like a scow”.  This jeering was short-lived, however, as the Johnson Scow not only lapped the fleet, but was home with the sails down by the time the second place boat crossed the finish line.

This invention was the first sailing scow.  It became the heart of a family business which Johnson established within a block of the Amundson Boat Works.  His old boss became his competitor, but they remained lifelong friends.

Impressed by Johnson’s victory and apparent foresight, C. Milton Griggs, a wealthy sailing enthusiast living on Manitou Island in White Bear Lake, rendered Johnson enough financing to produce another boat.  By the turn of the century, Johnson offered the sailing world a 38 foot, flat bottomed scow, named the “Minnezitka” with a profile as “low as the waves themselves”.  The Minnezitka was sleek and narrow with an impressive mast, and yards of sail.  She racked up victory after victory.  The Minnezitka became the predecessor of the legendary Class A Scow that we still race today.

The Johnson Scow became the talk of the inland sailing fraternity.  Orders for more scows came in and Johnson started hiring men to help him.  By 1904, the Johnson Boat Works of White Bear Lake was in full production, and J.O. Johnson was recognized as one of the top designers of sailboats for racing on inland lakes.  In the early 1900s, a 32-foot, Class B Scow became popular, along with the 20-foot, cat-rigged C Scow.  Several of these Class B boats were shipped to Montreal, Canada for international races during prohibition.  When they returned, they were secretly packed with liquor for the “deprived” White Bear yachtsmen.

The last wooden A scow built for Jack Pillsbury of Lake Minnetonka rolled out of the Johnson shop in the spring of 1963. She was named XXXX, presumably after the Pillsbury flour brand carrying the same emblem, but her owner was heard to say that it was the only name that spelled the same right side up or up side down. Pillsbury went on to win the ILYA Championship with the boat. Remarkably, this boat is still racing today and has been completely restored and fitted with a carbon mast and boom and a bow sprit. It is owned by Fletcher Driscoll of the White Bear Yacht Club and Steve Johnson, J.O.’s grandson is the helmsman. J.O. Johnson passed away in 1963 at the age of 88, but his legacy lives on. He went on to create several classes of scows after the A scow, but none were longer or carried more sail area than his early design.

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National Class A Scow Association

Class contact information.

Click below

Class Email

Class Website

One-Design Class Type: Dinghy

Was this boat built to be sailed by youth or adults? Both

Approximately how many class members do you have? 30

Photo Credit:

Photo Credit: One van der Wal / melges.com

About National Class A Scow Association

The 38 foot Class A Scow was the first scow designed and built by J.O. Johnson of Johnson Boat Works in 1895 in White Bear Lake, Minnesota USA. The boats were originally built of wood, but transitioned to fiberglass hulls in the 1980’s. Carbon fiber spars, foil-shaped rudders and transition to an asymmetrical spinnaker with bow sprit was completed in the late 1990’s.

The boat has dual rudders and dual bilgeboards (no fixed keel) and therefore requires a crew of six or seven to keep her upright in a blow. The A Scow is now built in Zenda, WI by Melges Performance Sailboats – the fastest and largest of the Melges Scow family. With over a century of heritage, delivering a combination of raw power, speed and performance unmatched in one-design sailing the A Scow is a true classic. A full length feature film documentary called “The Ultimate Ride” was released in 2006. Gary Jobson remarked on the class in this article: https://www.sailingworld.com/racing/ultimate-ride-indeed/

Boats Produced: Records are sketchy, but there have been several dozen built over over the past 125 years. There are probably 40-50 active boats with most of them racing at this time.

Class boat builder(s):

Melges Performance Sailboats P.O. Box 1 N598 Zenda Road Zenda, Wisconsin 53195 USA

Phone +1 262 275 1110 Fax +1 262 275 8012

Email [email protected]

Approximately how many boats are in the USA/North America? Almost all the boats are in North America. There are perhaps 3 in Europe and 1 in Australia that we have heard of.

Where is your One-Design class typically sailed in the USA? List regions of the country:

Typically in the upper Midwest of the USA (Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan) but races have been held in the east and in Texas.

Does this class have a spinnaker or gennaker? Yes

How many people sail as a crew including the helm?  6 or 7

Ideal combined weight of range of crew:  1100 – 1500 lbs

Boat Designed in  1895

Length (feet/inches): 38′ (11.582 m)

Beam: 8’3″ (2.515 m)

Weight of rigged boat without sails: 1,850 lbs (839.146 kg)

Draft: ~6′ with bilgeboard fully extended

Mast Height: 40′

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• Sailboat Guide

Johnson MC J-scow

• Description

Seller's Description

Amazing condition. Rainbow sail. Not enough room to keep. Functional trailer with new tires, might need lights.

Rig and Sails

Auxilary power, accomodations, calculations.

The theoretical maximum speed that a displacement hull can move efficiently through the water is determined by it's waterline length and displacement. It may be unable to reach this speed if the boat is underpowered or heavily loaded, though it may exceed this speed given enough power. Read more.

Classic hull speed formula:

Hull Speed = 1.34 x √LWL

Max Speed/Length ratio = 8.26 ÷ Displacement/Length ratio .311 Hull Speed = Max Speed/Length ratio x √LWL

Sail Area / Displacement Ratio

A measure of the power of the sails relative to the weight of the boat. The higher the number, the higher the performance, but the harder the boat will be to handle. This ratio is a "non-dimensional" value that facilitates comparisons between boats of different types and sizes. Read more.

SA/D = SA ÷ (D ÷ 64) 2/3

• SA : Sail area in square feet, derived by adding the mainsail area to 100% of the foretriangle area (the lateral area above the deck between the mast and the forestay).
• D : Displacement in pounds.

Ballast / Displacement Ratio

A measure of the stability of a boat's hull that suggests how well a monohull will stand up to its sails. The ballast displacement ratio indicates how much of the weight of a boat is placed for maximum stability against capsizing and is an indicator of stiffness and resistance to capsize.

Ballast / Displacement * 100

Displacement / Length Ratio

A measure of the weight of the boat relative to it's length at the waterline. The higher a boat’s D/L ratio, the more easily it will carry a load and the more comfortable its motion will be. The lower a boat's ratio is, the less power it takes to drive the boat to its nominal hull speed or beyond. Read more.

D/L = (D ÷ 2240) ÷ (0.01 x LWL)³

• D: Displacement of the boat in pounds.
• LWL: Waterline length in feet

Comfort Ratio

This ratio assess how quickly and abruptly a boat’s hull reacts to waves in a significant seaway, these being the elements of a boat’s motion most likely to cause seasickness. Read more.

Comfort ratio = D ÷ (.65 x (.7 LWL + .3 LOA) x Beam 1.33 )

• D: Displacement of the boat in pounds
• LOA: Length overall in feet
• Beam: Width of boat at the widest point in feet

Capsize Screening Formula

This formula attempts to indicate whether a given boat might be too wide and light to readily right itself after being overturned in extreme conditions. Read more.

CSV = Beam ÷ ³√(D / 64)

Based on the J SCOW of the the mid-1950’s. (Designed and built by John O. Johnson). Significantly updated by Melges.

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