page_title: Isaac C. Smith
section_title: Ships of note
hierarchical_section_title: Isaac C. Smith / Ships of note
caption_attribution_description: Built 1851, Hoboken, N. J., 1680 tons.
context_page_description: Isaac C. Smith was an American sail and steamboat captain, shipbuilder, sparmaker and entrepreneur.
  A longterm resident of Ossining, New York, Smith began his career working aboard Hudson River sloops, eventually rising to the rank of captain. He also built watercraft and worked as a sparmaker. In the mid-1830s, Smith was the initiator of a steamboat line from Ossining to New York City, supervising the construction of two steamboats for the line and taking command of the first.
  In 1849, Smith opened a shipyard in Hoboken, New Jersey, where he built a wide variety of vessels, from small sloops to steamboats to large, full-rigged ships. In 1853 he was joined in this venture by his son J. Malcolm Smith, the firm then being renamed Isaac C. Smith & Son. About 30 ships were built at this yard before it closed in 1855 due to a nationwide shipbuilding slump. In all, Smith is said to have built about 100 ships through the course of his career, the best known of which was the 1600-ton Hurricane, reputedly the most extreme clipper ever built.
context_section_description: The largest and best-known ship built by Isaac C. Smith was the 1600-ton extreme clipper Hurricane, said by some authorities to have been "the sharpest sailing ship ever constructed by any builder". Hurricane proved a very fast vessel, capable in ideal conditions of speeds of up to 18 knots (21 mph; 33 km/h). On an 1854 voyage from New York to San Francisco, Hurricane was on track to challenge Flying Cloud's all-time record passage of 89 days, until adverse conditions over the last 1000 miles lengthened her passage to a still outstanding 100 days. On another voyage, from Portsmouth, England to Calcutta, India, in 1855, Hurricane set a record of 82 1/4 days from The Needles to the mouth of the Hooghly River that remained unbeaten for many years.
  Smith built two other clippers, the 820-ton Gravina, built in 1853, and the small 470-ton Tejuca, completed in 1854. On an 1855 voyage, Tejuca made "one of the quickest passages on record" from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to New Orleans. Less than a year later however, she foundered in a hurricane, the majority of her crew being rescued by a daring maneouvre of the ship Excelsior, for which Excelsior's captain later received an award for heroism.
  Smith also built a substantial number of steam vessels, including steamboats, towboats and tugs. The largest of these was the 800-ton freight steamboat Atlas, built in 1852, which had the unusual design feature of external iron strapping for strengthening of her exceptionally broad-beamed hull. Another of Smith's steamboats, Ocean Wave, became notorious for the manner of her demise. After 17 years of service, Ocean Wave was found to be in too poor a condition for passenger service and was restricted by the authorities to freight-only service, but her owners ignored the restriction and continued to use the vessel for weekend passenger excursions. On one such excursion in August 1871, Ocean Wave's defective boiler exploded, sinking the steamer and killing over 70 passengers and crew.
caption: Smith's best-known ship, the extreme clipper Hurricane
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