A painting showing the 'Cutty Sark', from fine off the starboard bow on the right, and a tug in stern view on the left in the foreground. The 'Cutty Sark' is shown in full sail riding on the crest of a wave, silhouetted against a bright orange sky. A figure is shown on the tug's deck deck attending to a rope over the starboard quarter. The artist has exaggerated the effect of the smoke trailing out of the tug's funnel to the right and into the wave on which the 'Cutty Sark' rests. The painting encapsulates past, present and future, since the 'Cutty Sark', shown glorying in light on the crest of the wave, acts as a revered representation of the past. By contrast the tug stands for the present and the future, labouring in in comparative darkness in the hollows of the heavy sea, with the cross formed by its foremast adding an allusion to present suffering as it heads towards the golden heaven from which the famous sailing ship approaches. Stylistically the painting reflects a number of artistic influences, the stylized arrangement of the waves resembling the Japanese prints of Hokusai.

The 'Cutty Sark' was one of the most famous merchant sailing ships of the nineteenth century. She was built for the tea trade to China but the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, the year she was built, created a short cut that only steam ships could use and undermined the sailing trade in tea. So she went into the wool trade to Australia, in which she was very successful, until sold in 1895 to the Portuguese, renamed 'Ferreira' and largely used in trade with their African colonies. Everett saw her several times while she was at sea under this name. By 1922 she had been rescued by Captain Dowman and brought to England where Everett saw her again. She remained as a training ship until she was put into dry dock at Greenwich in 1954 as the last surviving British merchant clipper. The painting is inscribed with the artist's mark, lower right.