In 1892 the Fine Art Society, London, held an exhibition of Wyllie's watercolours with the title 'Holiday Drawings in France and Italy'. This included watercolours made during a family holiday at Berck-sur-Mer on the Pas de Calais coast of northen France. In her account of the holiday Mrs Wyllie referred to this fishing boat from the nearby St Valery-sur-Somme, which can be identified by the code on her hull '1808 SVSS':

'No. 1808 was a whiting boat, and in the winter sailed as far as Beachy Head, fishing, with mast and sail lowered and the oars out. The plank that stands up in the middle is a primitive centre-board, which was pushed through the bottom of the boat as soon as she got away from the land.'

M.A. Wyllie, ‘We Were One’ (London: Bell & Son Ltd., 1935)