[1][2] The Caprice was launched on April 10, 1871, as a clipper yacht from the shipyard of Brown & Lovell, at East Boston.

From 1874 to 1875, the ship master was George H. Sisco; her owners were Eugene Sullivan and Peter McEnry; and she belonged to the Port of New York.

[8][7]: p38 In 1881, two gentlemen, Mr. Burns and Mr. Benjamin, were invited to take a voyage, for a week, on the working pilot schooner Caprice.

From the article and references to ship's logs, we learn that the Caprice went past Castle Garden, out to Barnegat light, by the Little Egg Harbor, and up the coast to Sandy Hook.

He was seventy-four miles south of Montauk Point, when Phalan saw a big yellow, oval-shaped balloon dragging in the ocean.

15, on station duty, when she struck the shoal at the end of the West Bank Light in the Lower New York Bay and then sank.

[13][6]: p116 The last report of the pilot boat Caprice was on June 9, 1891, when she was struck by a large whale off the coast of New York.

Pilots Cameron and J. J. Kelly of the Caprice were awaken when they heard a thump and discovered that a whale had struck their boat.