On the right a Dutch pinnace or similar vessel, with many figures on board, runs before the wind in starboard-broadside view across the picture plane. On the left, astern, is a boier in full sail. Both vessels fly the Dutch flag. A Dutch flagship is at anchor in the right distance off the coastline of what is presumably the Zuider Zee, with a skyline of houses and a church, and sand dunes on the right. This is a companion picture to BHC0769 and is an example of the fashion for pairs of painting contrasting stormy with calm scenes, and bearing symbolic meanings.

The artist was born and died in Haarlem and was believed to have been a pupil of Hendrick Cornelisz Vroom, the artist generally perceived as the inventor of specialist marine painting. There are traces of a signature 'CVB' on the side of the vessel to the right.