A general view of the activity in Hong Kong harbour to right the sunken dredger Canton River. The pre-Dreadnought battleships HMS Centurion (1892) and HMS Barfleur (1892) are in the background, one is broadside-to and the other is obscured behind the starboard broadside of the three-masted schooner-rigged survey vessel HMS Waterwitch (1892).

A steam lifing crane is to just behind but bows-to the sunken dredger which has chains around the hull. A single-masted wooded vessel is in the foreground with line srunning acrss the deck and into the water. A small single-masted boat is being poled across the harbour in front of the wooden vessel and past the wreck.

The original negative envelope was labelled: 'Raising Dredger, H.K. 1901'. Sir Percy Scott oversaw the righting of the dredger in Hong Kong between 2 and 18 January 1901. It was finally raised in early March 1901.