I look forward to visiting the Coast to Coast exhibition at York Art Gallery (Bravely crossing the bar to the open sea, August 10) but was initially puzzled by the dating of the Carmichael picture of Queen Victoria’s visit to Edinburgh as “c1850”. By that time there were two royal yachts, the Victoria and Albert and the smaller Fairy. Both were steam-sailors with conspicuous paddle wheels.

As Stephen Lewis correctly points out, the vessel shown is a sailing man-of-war with neither paddle wheels nor smoke stack. I strongly suspect she is an earlier royal yacht, the Royal George, which brought Victoria to Edinburgh in 1842.

Of course, the painting itself may well date from the following decade, perhaps relying on sketches made at the time?

Jeremy Muldowney,

Second Avenue, Heworth