Tested: MJM 3 Dual Console

A new model, the MJM 3 Dual Console, and a new facility in North Carolina sparks the second act of MJM, and it’s off to a handsome start.

Almost two decades after Bob Johnstone founded MJM Yachts, his son Peter looks to bring the family business to the masses, starting with the MJM 3 dual console.

Second Generation
The MJM origin story is well documented and oft told. As he grew older, famed sailboat builder Bob Johnstone was looking to trade in his sails and winches for a powerboat that he and his wife, Mary, could cruise aboard comfortably. Not seeing exactly what he wanted on the market, he set out to do what any good boatbuilder would do: create it himself, with the help of a naval architect. A couple years later, Mary Johnstone’s Motorboat was splashed, and MJM Yachts was born.

Since then, MJM has carved a niche for itself in the crowded Down East market. Hundreds of MJMs were built under Johnstone’s watchful eye at Boston Boatworks. I’ve had the opportunity to test multiple models with Johnstone over the years and always walked away impressed with the quality of construction and the swiftness and efficiency of the ride, and with a respect for the founder, who took such a personal approach to his business.

For decades, Bob’s life in the boat business bled into his home life. For his children, that sometimes meant making sacrifices for the good of the family business. When he was 12 years old, Peter, the youngest of the Johnstone brood, had to relinquish his bedroom so it could become the first J/Boats office.

“As the youngest sibling, I got to see the entrepreneurial period of my dad’s life. The boats started really coming into our lives when my dad went to work at Sunfish in the mid ‘70s,” says Peter. “That was when I was 10 years old. So that’s when the real business part of boats started to happen. There’s always been boat talk around the dinner table.”

Peter says he didn’t begrudge the displacement. In fact, he laughs at the memory. “My dad told me, ‘We need your bedroom, and you can go sleep up in the attic.’ But I didn’t mind it; it was part of the adventure.”

I asked Peter if the move made him feel more connected to the new family business, like he had skin in the game. “No question,” he replied. “I think that a sense of adventure has always been in this particular family, whether it’s going cruising, my brothers sleeping in these lazarette lockers on a small sailboat or starting a business and making the sacrifices to make it happen, that it wasn’t viewed as any big deal. It was just steps taken to help the cause.”

An imaginative young man, he felt the pull of the sea and the boat business at a young age. When he wasn’t out sailing with his siblings and friends, he could be found leaning atop his school books, sketching sailboats and new boat designs all over the margins.

Peter would go on to enjoy a mostly successful career in the marine industry, running a number of different prestigious boat brands. The blemish on his permanent record is that of GunBoat, a cutting-edge sailboat company that he founded in 2000; after 15 years of building boats that captured the attention and imagination of the sailing world, he was forced to file Chapter 11, citing issues with his overseas builder.

“That was a painful period, and also probably more learning from failure than from anything else in my life,” says Peter. “You can add up all the successes I’ve had, and there are a lot. As I say, I’m 7-and-1 with boat businesses.”

Note the electronically opening windows forward and the manual windows to port and starboard. This is a seriously open boat when you want it to be.

That experience of losing something you’ve poured your heart into cut deep, but it also taught him a valuable lesson in not letting outside entities determine your destiny. When he joined MJM in an official capacity a few years ago, he was intent on protecting the family business from similar specters.

“I think building boats with subcontractors is very challenging, and it’s remarkably rare that it works long-term,” he says. “So, when I got involved with MJM, the whole business was based on a subcontractor, and I knew we had to set up our own manufacturing to gain capacity, even if that subcontractor were to remain with us long term.” Peter began pressing his dad as early as 2016 to build out MJM’s own production facility. Even after they started looking at properties, it took Peter another two to three years to get Bob to come around to the idea. Roughly two years ago, MJM set up an incubator shop in Washington, North Carolina, “A small shop just to start building the organizational structure and processes and people.”

Today, that kid from the attic is at the helm of MJM, having purchased the company from his father in November 2020 and now working feverishly to take his family’s company to the next level. While Boston Boatworks continues to build MJMs at the Boston facility (a partnership Peter hopes will continue in perpetuity), as it has since the beginning, Peter is laser-focused on building out a workforce in his new 200,000-square-foot facility in North Carolina.

The fruit of that labor has come to fruition in the form of the new boat I’m there to see—the MJM 3—the brand’s first dual console.

The facility is still in its infancy, but it’s already starting to hum with activity. I watch as employees prepare to infuse the hull of a MJM 3. Helping to keep the 140-person (and growing) workforce moving in lockstep is another son of boatbuilding royalty, Reggie Fountain III, brought on as operations manager. I bump into him on the shop floor and ask how he likes his new role. He seems genuinely excited about the challenge of building the facility from the ground up. Peter chimes in and jokes that the racing prodigy is “always trying to convince us to put the new [Mercury] 600s on the boats.”

For now, their focus is on acquiring and training a workforce of the future to meet Peter’s ambitious goals. As we stroll through the arena-size plant, he tells me that his goal is to build 20 boats in this facility this year and 60 the year after.

“What about the year after that?” I ask.

He laughs. “It’s going to be a big jump from there,” he says with sincerity. “We’re going to bring the brand to a much larger audience.”

With a dealer network that seems to grow by the day (24 and counting at the time of my visit) the demand exists. Peter says that they’re sold out until 2023. Still, I wonder why he chose to plant the flag for this Down East-styled brand in North Carolina?

“It’s a lot cheaper to build here, and there are good people with strong work ethics,” he explains. “There’s government support for businesses, it’s centrally located to supply chains and there’s better access to Florida, which is 25 percent of the market.”

Walking out of the factory to take out the MJM 3 a couple miles down the road, I mention to Peter that it feels like I just toured a 20-year-old startup.

“That’s exactly the right description,” he says with a laugh. “Tell you what, how I view it: My dad created this incredible platform with a hard-won reputation and fantastic base products. The brand was going in a fantastic direction. All we’re doing is putting a real
business behind it now and fulfilling the potential or the promise or the direction that my dad established. That’s all we’re doing. I mean, in my view it’s not bold at all; we’re just letting the brand reach its potential.”

It’s gray and drizzling when we reach the MJM 3. Not a great day for a boat test, I think to myself as I step through the starboard-side hull door. At the helm, I note three large windows that open at the touch of a switch, and the enormous side windows. I’m walking through the canvas enclosure between the salon and cockpit when it hits me, or rather, doesn’t hit me—aka the rain. It dawns on me that this is actually the perfect day to test this kind of boat. If it were sunny, the boat would really open up and offer the connection to the water that has attracted so many to the center console market, but in poor conditions it closes to create a cozy, climate-controlled atmosphere. Contributing to that feeling of comfort is the head with shower in the port console and the changing room to starboard.

Plush seating all around the boat, areas to wine and dine guests forward and in the salon, a civilized head and first-class driving experience all add up to a boat that will make waves in the day-boat market.

In the open water of Pamlico Sound, I channel my inner (read: wannabe) Reggie Fountain and push the MJM 3 to its top speed of 41 knots. Visibility is excellent all around the boat as I pass other racers only in my imagination. Smooth with incredible tracking and a pillow-soft landing when running over our own wake, my ride for the day is a heck of a lot more comfortable than the cavity-rattling race boats that once ruled these waters.

You don’t need to spend a lot of time running the MJM 3 to realize it lives up to the performance and handling expectations set by her sisterships. We head back for the barn when I ask Peter about the impetus behind the new facility and his desire for growth. Wouldn’t his life be easier if MJM stayed a boutique builder that turned out a small numbers of high-quality boats?

“I don’t know, you’re given one shot at this life,” he says. “I think my feeling is, you’re put on this planet for a reason, so go maximize it. Don’t do things halfway just to get a paycheck, but try and make as many people’s lives better with what you’re doing. For us, that happens to be building and selling boats that really are better and make families’ lives better.”

MJM 3 Specifications:
LOA: 38’2″
Beam: 11′
Draft: 2’8″
Displ: 13,279 lb
Fuel: 250 gal
Water: 58 gal
Standard Power: 2/300-hp Mercury outboards

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