It looks like a (modern or old) version of this print: "The Bermuda Floating Dock, In Tow of H.M.Ss Warrior and Black Prince and Terrible astern Leaving Porto Santo for their Voyage across the Atlantic, July 4th 1869"
I don’t get it. It sounds like you are claiming the article image is not AI slop, but rather an old print. But then you link to something that isn’t even remotely like the article image.
It was common for paintings/etchings to be made based on existing paintings in the 19th century - I'm guessing the painting link I gave was probably close to an original or source.
There's lots of similar images on the internet, this image on Alamy claims to scanned from a Victorian mechanical‑engineering book of the 1880s
There was a time in the early steamship days where they carried both engines and sails. If that's what you object to it's very easy to verify this with historical records.
Something else. Rigging is the ropes holding the masts and controlling the sails. There's a bunch of weirdness going on with that. Someone with an interest in sail boats will spot it easily.
Yes, as long as you were happy to wait 30s for an exposure (on tripod), by 1850 (most of those photos were > 15 years later than that) there were many photos of good quality.
Look at photos of Crystal Palace in 1851 for example.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Admiralty_floating_doc...
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6f/HMS_Psyc...