A 12x10 negative. A group portrait outside the Royal Clarendon Hotel in Royal Pier Road, Gravesend, on the morning after the Town Regatta in 1898. The six men who took part in the Apprentices’ Race are sitting in the prize boat 'Mabel Ryder', surrounded by their supporters. The winner of the race, J.J. Watkins and his father, a Trinity House pilot, are probably at the centre of the group. The boat was built by the Warner yard at Gravesend and named after the wife of the Right Honourable John Herbert Dudley Ryder (1864-1956), the Member of Parliament for Gravesend. His family crest can be seen on the backboard.

The 10 September 1898 issue of 'The Gravesend and Dartford Reporter' confirms that this photograph was taken by F.C. Gould & Son on the morning after the regatta. In the afternoon the apprentices and others connected with the waterfront took the boat on a celebratory parade through Gravesend and neighbouring towns.