Pook designed several very fast clippers, including the Surprise, Witchcraft, Herald of the Morning and Northern Light, all of which made passages, prior to 1861, from an American East Coast port to San Francisco, via Cape Horn in fewer than 100 days, a speedy passage for the period.

Pook also designed the 1853 clipper Challenger and the Red Jacket, a holder of the speed record for the New York City-Liverpool and Liverpool-Melbourne passages.

Pook was less successful in his design for the Civil War-era ironclad Galena, which was found, in combat conditions, to suffer from ineffective armoring.

The Idler was a luxury schooner yacht built in the summer of 1864 by the S. H. Pook in Fair Haven.

She was owned by yachtsman Thomas C. Durant and part of the New York Yacht Squadron.