A first-class racing cutter, said by many authorities to be the finest yacht ever built from the plans of premier English designer George L. Watson. Ordered by Kaiser Wilhelm II, Emperor of Germany, she launched and immediately became the fastest racer on water in 1896. This is more impressive once it's realized that her primary competitors were the big English cutters Britannia and Ailsa. In 22 starts that year, Meteor II won 13 1sts and 4 2nds, including the Queen's Cup at both the Royal Northern Yacht Club and the Royal Ulster Yacht Club.
The then-enormous cutter yacht, her 103' black-hull obliterating the swell and tacking smartly with the wind, flies the Hohenzollern Eagle proudly aloft, while her competitors give chase. The public appetite for the big races was at its peak and with the ruling houses of two countries involved, it was the most widely followed sport of its day. The artist was well associated with clients from the highest echelons of society, and with his Scottish heritage, he found work in London as an illustrator of some of his countrymen's best known literary works, such as Sir Walter Scott's "The Tempest". He undoubtably was directly commissioned to paint this royal racer.
The kaiser, while the eldest of Queen Victoria's grandchildren, was a German nationalist through and through, and almost through his will alone drove the citizenry to take up competitive yachting and seamanship, which in turn assisted the drive toward developing a strong imperial navy. In the years before the coming turmoil of world war, the English and Germans were friendly and fierce competitors, and the first class cutters led all others.
