About Canadian Yachting

Canadian Yachting

Canadian Yachting was Canada's national boating magazine, serving the country's sail and power boating communities from 1976 until its rebranding. In October 2023 its publisher, Kerrwil Media Limited, announced that the legacy Canadian Yachting brand would be replaced by Canadian Boating across its print and digital magazine — the name under which the publication now operates at canadianboating.ca. This profile covers the Canadian Yachting title and its continuation as Canadian Boating.

Overview

Canadian Yachting was founded in September 1976 as a national magazine for Canadian boaters, covering sail and power boating: boat reviews, technical and mechanical how-tos, new products, cruising destinations, chartering, lifestyle, and industry news. It was published six times a year (increased to eight issues per year in the 2010s) and carried extensive classifieds and an "Ask the Experts" column. A subscription was included with membership in the Canadian Power and Sail Squadrons, and each issue carried that organization's publication, The Port Hole.

The publication was an early digital adopter: it launched the first consumer special-interest website in 1998, and with Boating Industry Canada became the first consumer title in the boating-magazine category worldwide to launch a digital edition.

History

Canadian Yachting was founded in September 1976 (Volume 1, Number 1) by publisher Gerald Gordon Kidd, under the editorship of Ron Joiner, assisted by John Turnbull. The team worked out of the Vancouver, British Columbia, offices of Pacific Yachting Magazine (also published by Kidd), though a Church Street, Toronto, address was listed as the formal address and later headquarters. The first issue included an extensive preview of "Dockside 76," the boat show held that September at Ontario Place in Toronto.

Kidd sold his publishing company to MacLean Hunter in 1978, and Canadian Yachting was published by Maclean-Hunter from December 1978 until summer 1990. That year, after MacLean Hunter decided to divest its special-interest magazines, the title was acquired by Kerrwil Publications Limited; since September 1990 it has been published by Kerrwil (later Kerrwil Media). With the acquisition came editor Doug Hunter and colleagues Iain MacMillan, Barry Redmayne, and Carolyn Haltrecht. Subsequent publishers included Cam MacDonald, Elizabeth Kerr, and Greg Nicoll.

In 2012 Kerrwil set up Adastra Media Inc. to focus on its boating brands — the name, Latin for "to the stars," chosen in part to honour Jack Kerr, Kerrwil's founder, and his service in the Royal Canadian Air Force — while Kerrwil re-entered the electrical market. The company later operated under the Canadian Yachting Media brand.

In October 2023, Kerrwil Media Limited announced an extensive rebranding: the new brand Canadian Boating would replace Canadian Yachting on the print and digital magazine, with the Canadian Yachting Onboard digital digest becoming Canadian Boating Onboard. The first official issue of Canadian Boating magazine, featuring the annual December Gift & Electronics Guide, was celebrated at the Toronto International Boat Show in January 2024. The company said the rebrand followed boating-industry trends while continuing its priority of serving the community for which it publishes.

Content

The magazine's content covers power and sail boating for Canadian enthusiasts: boat reviews, technical and mechanical articles, how-to features, lifestyle pieces, new products, cruising destinations, and chartering. The digital digest, now Canadian Boating Onboard, is deployed twice monthly with boating news. The brand also encompasses Boating Industry Canada and its Newsweek digest, plus Canadian editions of the Sail-World, Powerboat-World, and Marine Business World online news networks through a strategic alliance with Australia's TetraMedia Marine Group.

The Rebrand: From Yachting to Boating

The October 2023 rebrand was announced as a full identity change, not a cosmetic tweak. Kerrwil Media unveiled new names and new logos: the legacy Canadian Yachting brand would be replaced by Canadian Boating on the print and digital magazine, and the twice-monthly Canadian Yachting Onboard digest became Canadian Boating Onboard. The announcement, carried by Boating Industry Canada on October 24, 2023 (and on the brand's own site a week earlier), laid out the sequence: the official website launch first, then the digest relaunch, then the first official issue of Canadian Boating magazine featuring the annual December Gift & Electronics Guide. The celebratory launch party was staged at the Toronto International Boat Show in January 2024.

The rationale, in the company's own words, was to follow boating-industry trends while keeping first priority on serving the community for which it publishes: "Canadian Yachting started as a print magazine in 1976 and has served the national sail and power boating/yachting communities in Canada ever since," the announcement noted, tracing the brand's evolution from print to digital magazine, website, and news digests. The "yachting" name had come to feel exclusionary — suggesting luxury craft rather than the trailer sailors, runabouts, and family cruisers that make up most Canadian boating — and the rebrand brought the title's identity in line with how its readers actually describe their pastime.

The Boat Show Connection

The Toronto International Boat Show is the brand's physical home turf, and Canadian Yachting Media has long been a fixture there. At the January 2023 show, the team staffed a booth with editors and writers on hand to talk boating with readers, handed out the February issue of Canadian Yachting, displayed the PORTS series of cruising guides — including the then-new Lake Ontario edition — and ran a boat-show contest ("Whatever Floats Your Boat") offering prizes from Steiner binoculars to Mustang survival PFDs. The 2023 show drew more than 65,500 consumers through the Enercare Centre gates, and the magazine's contest winners came from Vancouver Island, Port Credit Yacht Club, and Bedford Basin Yacht Club — a coast-to-coast snapshot of the readership.

The connection runs deeper than a booth. Kerrwil handles advertising sales for the Toronto and Vancouver International Boat Shows and for the Boating Ontario Association's publications — a commercial role that makes the publisher part of the industry's infrastructure, not just its press. The PORTS cruising guides, sold at the show and through the brand's channels, are another line of the company's publishing business: practical pilotage for the waters Canadian boaters actually cruise.

Kerrwil's Boating Media Business

Kerrwil Media has diversified its boating portfolio well beyond the flagship magazine. In June 2023 the company announced a sales partnership with Bullitage Media's Water Ways TV: Kerrwil (operating as Canadian Yachting Media) took over advertising sales for the recreational boating show as it expanded to six provinces on Global TV for its second season in fall 2023. "We're already had great success with partners of all sizes finding efficiencies with their message outreach," said Jill Snider, Kerrwil Media's vice-president, describing the combined power of the industry's publications, the biggest consumer shows, the largest provincial association, and now a television show.

The brand also encompasses Boating Industry Canada — with its weekly News Week digest covering products, research, and industry developments every Tuesday — and the Canadian editions of the Sail-World, Powerboat-World, and Marine Business World online news networks through a strategic alliance with Australia's TetraMedia Marine Group. Together, the consumer magazine, the trade publication, the TV partnership, and the international news alliance give Kerrwil one of the most complete media footprints in Canadian recreational boating — a long way from the 1976 startup that previewed a boat show at Ontario Place.

Coverage & Audience

The publication serves Canada's national boating community — sail and power boaters, marine-industry professionals, and members of the Canadian Power and Sail Squadrons — from its Toronto base. Described in industry materials as Canada's oldest national boating magazine with the country's largest paid, home-delivered, audited distribution in the category, it reached readers across the country in print and, increasingly, online. In 2012 the magazine reported brisk newsstand growth alongside rising boat sales, with its January/February 2013 issue running to 166 pages.

Ownership

The Canadian Yachting / Canadian Boating brand is owned by Kerrwil Media Limited (formerly Kerrwil Publications Limited), a Toronto-based publisher founded in 1964 and described as Canada's oldest privately held publishing company. Earlier owners were founder Gerald Gordon Kidd (1976–1978) and MacLean Hunter / Maclean-Hunter (1978–1990).

Digital Presence

The brand's digital home is canadianboating.ca, relaunched with the 2023 rebrand, alongside the twice-monthly Canadian Boating Onboard digest and the allied Sail-World Canada, Powerboat-World Canada, and Marine Business World Canada news sites. The publication's history is documented in its Wikipedia entry, in the Naval Marine Archive's collection of 253 issues, and in Masthead Online's industry coverage.