An irregular embankment, with timber revetment, runs from the right foreground to the centre middle-distance. A beacon stands on the raised shore on the right with the roofs of houses visible beyond, and higher ground in the distance. A village is in the centre, behind a revetted waterfront, with a smalschip under sail in port-broadside view on a calm sea to the left. In the left distance a ship lies at anchor and there is a mill standing on the coast on the far horizon, centre left.

The paper was once the top of a larger sheet, now divided horizontally, and the reverse bears part of a larger drawing showing parts of a sprit-rigged vessel and the topsails of three ships. The lower half of the sheet, with the rest of the verso drawing, is now PAE5163. Both halves are parts of a group of twelve drawings of shore scenes or distant views of the Dutch coastline in pen and brown ink (PAE5158, PAE5159, PAE5160, PAE5161, PAE5162, PAE5163, PAE5164, PAE5165, PAE5166, PAE5167, PAE5168, PAE5169). It is likely from the appearance of the ships in all these works that they were made in the 1650s. They were probably done in connection with the elder van de Velde's earliest pen-paintings, since he probably did not need such sketches later, and had passed as by several different artists until re-attributed by Sir Bruce Ingram.