It is an 8-foot-tall (2.4 m), bronze statue of a fisherman dressed in oilskins standing braced at the wheel on the sloping deck of his ship.

[3] A small plaque on the north or street-facing side of the base reads, "Memorial To The Gloucester Fisherman, August 23, 1923".

A larger recessed panel on the front or harbor-facing side of the base holds an inscription of bronze letters taken from the Bible's Psalm 107:23, which reads: "They That Go Down To The Sea In Ships 1623-1923".

The English sculptor Leonard Craske (1882–1950) designed the sculpture, and it was cast by the Gorham Company of Providence, Rhode Island, in 1925.

In preparing for the competition, Craske spent many hours aboard fishing schooners, sketching and photographing fishermen at work.