Jolie Brise is a gaff-rigged pilot cutter built and launched by the Albert Paumelle Yard in Le Havre in 1913 to a design by Alexandre Pâris. After a short career as a pilot boat, owing to steam replacing sail, she became a fishing boat, a racing yacht and a sail training vessel.

Commander Evelyn George Martin was a British sailor, writer and cricketer. He was educated at Eton and New College, Oxford, where he was awarded a cricket Blue, and served in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve during the First World War. He was born in Upton-on-Severn, Worcestershire.