A 12x10 negative. A starboard bow view of the spritsail rigged general cargo barge Surf (1900) under sail in the Thames Estuary during a Thames Barge Match. She is on the outward leg of the course. She is running downwind on the starboard tack and her jib is poled out to port. Her crew are dressed in whites and two of them are manoeuvring a pole, presumably to shift the foresail out to starboard where it will not be blanketed by the mainsail. A Gamecock Steam Towing Co tug is in the background. The strength and direction of the wind indicates that this is the 1900 or 1902 Match; the wind condition in 1901 was a strong westerly and in 1903 in was a half gale from the north-north-east. A vertical format image.