[2] At its launch in 1906, from the offices of The Field, The Manchester Guardian reviewed the first issue describing it as, "a substantial and well-illustrated 80-page magazine which really contains something to read".

[3][4] From February 1918 it became the official magazine of the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve, and the name was changed to The Yachting Monthly and Magazine of the R.N.V.R, however the name as simplified to Yachting Monthly in 1921 Through its over one hundred-year history[5][6] the magazine has been edited by several people whose significance in the yachting world goes beyond being its editor.

The founding editor, from the publication of the first edition in May 1906 until his death at sea on his yacht on 16 July 1921.

Born in Edinburgh around 1873, the son of George Reiach, General Inspector of Scottish Fisheries, he went to school in Edinburgh and had worked as a Naval Architect in Leith, Liverpool and Camper and Nicholsons with his friend Charles Nicholson.

Brother of Brooke Heckstall-Smith,[8] who wrote the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica entry on Yachting,[9][10] and as secretary of the Yacht Racing Association played a key role in the development of the International Rule.