Description

Stiletto was designed by Captain Nat and built by HMCo as a demonstration vessel to show the world that Herreshoff steam vessels were the fastest in the world. In June of 1885, she raced the much larger Hudson River steamer Mary Powell and ran circles around her. This stunt became headline news.

"No event in the last 20 years has created so profound and widespread an interest among shipping merchants, steamboatmen, and yachtsmen as the performance on Wednesday last of the little steam yacht Stiletto in beating the fast steamer Mary Powell."

"Our aim." said Mr. Herreshoff [JBH], 'is not only to build a yacht capable of conveying business men quickly to and from their country residences and the city, but also to produce a craft which would be serviceable to the Government in case of necessity as a torpedo boat."

'We have made as much as 25 miles an hour with the Stiletto, and she can probably make as much as 27 miles. We did not urge her to the utmost when we passed the Powell, because there was no necessity." ("New York Times", June 15, 1885).

In 1887, Stiletto was purchased by the U.S. Navy for experiments in developing torpedo boats.

(Source HCR Stiletto text http://research.herreshoff.info/Menu/). Stiletto was launched as a private Herreshoff owned torpedo type yacht with small auxiliary sails. She served as a torpedo boat testing platform for U. S. Navy Torpedo Station in Newport, RI from 1887 until scrapped in 1911. First torpedo boat in the U.S.N. to deploy a bow mounted torpedo tube. Stiletto was the testbed for the development of U.S.N. oceangoing torpedo boats. Herreshoff's larger torpedo boat Cushing (# 190) in 1890 becomes the lead vessel of this new class for the U.S.N. Stiletto was a significant development from Lightning, the first HMCo torpedo boat in 1876, ordered for experimental purposes in developing the spar torpedo type by the U. S. Navy. Ligthning led to additional torpedo boat orders by the British Admiralty, Chile, Peru and Russia. Lightning was the seventh HMCo steam vessel to employ an important innovation, the light weight and very efficient coil boiler, invented by the oldest Herreshoff brother James. These coil boilers were significant contributions to the high speed of early HMCo steam vessels, which clearly attracted wide attention and customers.