The steam vessel is a turtle-back torpedo-boat destroyer of around 1900. That under sail is a coastal ketch-rigged spritsail barge running under full sail, including topsail. On the right men in a boat are setting or adjusting an artillery target of a sheet of canvas or other fabric suspended on a float between two uprights. The shell splash, lower left also includes such a target, now partly damaged.. The small full-length figure studies, one of which shows a lady with a wheeled chair or pram are inverted in relation to the others.