This painting was previously wrongly titled as showing the 'Cutty Sark' in the distance. The distant vessel is a rather bigger four-masted barque - a rig never used on 'Cutty Sark' though she had a period operating as a three-masted barque when under Portuguese ownership as the 'Ferreira'. Everett several times saw her at sea during his own voyages, but she is not the vessel shown here. Other candidates may be the so-called 'Flying Ps' - 'Pamir', 'Passat', 'Pommern' - the 'Moshulu' and the 'Herzogin Cecilie', all steel and German-built vessels which, in the 1930s, were the last to trade commercially under Finnish ownership in the celebrated Auustralian 'grain race' voyages. However, they were not the only ones operating.

The unusual viewpoint is from the deck of the barque,'Birkdale', looking aft. The sails of the ship hover over the painting on the left, with the attached rope cutting vertically through the painting. A complex patterning of ropes, halyards and metal stanchions punctuates the left side of the image, setting up a visual tension and contrast with the seascape on the right.There are several men on the deck of the 'Birkdale'. Three face away from the viewer on the left and one wears yellow oilskins and a yellow hat. A fourth man with a cap looks out towards the ship on the horizon on the right, shown in full sail with her three masts visible, silhouetted against the skyline in port-quarter view. The painting is a fusion of styles and techniques ranging from formalist to representational. The sky exudes a golden glow and a line of cloud hovers above the horizon as a solid mass, rising up above the distant ship. The sea is shown calm and a detailed patterning on the right indicates the ship's wake.

Everett joined the barque, 'Birkdale', and sailed from Bristol to Sabine Pass, Texas, April-June 1920. It was his first journey after World War I. The 'Birkdale' was due to take sulphur from Texas to the Cape, but when she arrived in Texas the ship was re-chartered to Australia and so Everett reluctantly left her and came home by steamer. The 'Birkdale', built in 1892, was the last barque to fly the red ensign and spent nearly all her working life in the Chilean nitrate trade. For a short time after World War I she switched to taking sulphur from Texas to the Cape. The 'Birkdale' went back to the nitrate trade and was wrecked on the Chilean coast after catching fire in 1927.