She was conceived as the largest, fastest, most luxurious trans-Atlantic passenger liner of her day, the pride of the Collins Line.

She made only one roundtrip for the Collins Line before that firm failed, partly because of Adriatic's high cost.

She made five more roundtrips as a luxury liner, before she was sold to an English firm which reconfigured her to carry hundreds of Irish immigrants to America.

In all, the ship made only twelve trans-Atlantic roundtrips, so while she may have been a triumph of American shipbuilding, none of her owners were successful.

[1] He won the contract and established the New York and Liverpool United States Mail Steamship Company, which was universally shortened in common parlance to the Collins Line.

[2] Collins built only four ships but the post office did not press the five-ship requirement in the mail contract.

[5] Collins determined to build Adriatic as the largest, fastest, and most luxurious trans-Atlantic steamer of all time.

George Steers was a prominent shipbuilder of the day, and was already associated with the Collins Line having been foreman of the team that built Atlantic.

Collins chartered a ferry and invited two or three hundred guests to join him in the East River to watch.

First one anchor was dropped and then a second, but the ship had such momentum that her stern rammed into the docks on the Williamsburg side of the river and crushed 15 feet (4.6 m) of wharf before coming to a stop.

[6] A tug extricated her from the wreckage and towed her to the Great Balance Dock, a floating drydock, where she would have her bottom sheathed in thin copper plates to discourage marine growth and wood-boring worms.

[10] Adriatic was intended to provide cutting edge performance, and consequently her mechanical systems pushed the limits of conventional steam technology.

Of particular note, the original steam and exhaust valves designed by Horatio Allen, failed and were replaced by more conventional technology.

She steamed out of New York Harbor about 50 miles to the south and then returned to Sandy Hook where she anchored for the night.

She sailed around Block Island and returned to her berth at the Collins Line dock at the foot of Canal Street in the Hudson River.

On the way out of her berth, Adriatic collided with the tug William H. Webb, the Collins steamer Atlantic, and the dock she had just left.

The three tugs deployed to assist could not control the Adriatic and a flood tide swept her a mile upriver before the ship headed out to sea.

[19] The ship reached Liverpool after a fairly uneventful voyage on December 4, 1857, having completed the crossing in just over 10 days, a very respectable speed in that era.

[23] The surviving Collins ships, Atlantic and Baltic, were worked hard for less profit and then were withdrawn from service at intervals for repair.

On April 1, 1858, Dudley B. Fuller, acting on behalf of the Brown brothers, was the sole bidder for Atlantic, Baltic, and Adriatic at a sheriff's auction.

[24][25] He bid only $50,000 which left various government and private creditors seeking recompense, mired in failed sale attempts and litigation for years.

When these contracts were due for renewal in 1859, the U.S. Mail Steamship Company chose to sell its assets and retire from the business.

Her steam and exhaust valves were replaced yet again, and more robust bearings were installed to support the massive paddle-shafts.

[2] She sailed five trans-Atlantic round-trips in 1860, returning to her home port, before the North Atlantic became too stormy, on November 6, 1860.

[18] She was registered with British Registrar of Shipping on April 19, 1861, and assigned official number 29762 and signal code Q.H.B.D.

[45] On her return voyage, the ship was trapped in the sea ice at Cape Bretton Island, and spent the winter of 1861–62 frozen in at Sydney.

[48] After two years of spirited lobbying, the Galway Line regained a mail contract and recommenced its trans-Atlantic service.

The Royal Mail Steamer Adriatic, arrived back in Galway on September 1, 1863, ready to sail for New York again.

[52] Adriatic sat idle in Southampton for nearly five years[53] until she was purchased by Sir Edward Bates in September 1869.

It was reported that Bates planned to convert Adriatic into a sailing ship, ridding her of the expense of bulky machinery and tons of coal, and use her to transport up to 20,000 bales of East India cotton back to Britain.