The 'Minerva', 976 tons, was built in Bombay in 1813 and undertook ten voyages for the Company between 1814 and 1831. In August of that year, the vessel was purchased by Henry Templer who paid £9,400 for the ship and £2,400 for the captain's stores at sea. The three vessels did not sail together before 1829. In 1820, the date of the painting, the vessels may have been together at sea but were more likely to have passed in the Bay of Biscay during May rather than off the Cape, since the 'Scaleby Castle' was actually outward bound for China, while the other two were on the return leg of a voyage that had commenced in early 1819. It is also unlikely that the artist ever visited Cape Town. The scene is therefore almost certainly fictional and the painting was probably commissioned in England to demonstrate three of the Company's most successful vessels at the height of their activities, possibly by someone with a commercial interest or otherwise connected with them.