Under a tall pale blue sky, with light shimmering through white clouds, a number of ships can be seen sailing in a fresh breeze. A small whale or dolphin is spouting water in the foreground. Above the low horizon on the left, a stretch of land is just about visible through the moist atmosphere. A kaag in the right foreground is ploughing the waves and, like the distant ships, which appear wrapped in the mist, its depiction displays a degree of naturalism which departs from Vroom’s other images. This naturalism is helped by the eye-level perspective and can more obviously be found in the work of the next generation of painters such as Jan van Goyen and Jan Porcellis. This small image, painted on copper, clearly illustrates the role Vroom’s seascapes played in establishing marine art in Holland, and also in linking the artistic tradition of the beginning of the seventeenth century and the new tonal naturalism evolving in the artist’s home town of Haarlem in the 1620s and 1630s.