Editorial comment on this plate:

We present our readers, this week, with a breezy picture from a negative by Mr. C. A. Northrop. “The Helmsman” is a “timely” illustration, as the magazines would say, and certainly is a fine specimen of marine photography. There is go to this picture. And notwithstanding the difficulty of the photographing, it is entirely satisfactory.
The photo-gravure has undoubtedly improved the effect of the original to some extent. The color in which it is printed is well chosen, and altogether we have in this picture an unusually attractive product of the camera.