Surprise served as a clipper-rigged ship for 17 years, from 1850 until 1867, giving her an exceptionally long working life with this demanding rigging.

[2] "Her ends were said to be quite sharp," another account reads, "but she was not quite as large and did not carry as much sail as other clippers of her era, such as Game Cock, Sea Serpent and White Squall.

The figurehead was a finely carved and gilded flying eagle, and the stern was ornamented with the arms of New York.

Receptions of this sort were intended to help "sell" the new clipper's (relatively high-priced) shipping services to New York merchants and wholesalers.

"The R. B. Forbes ... was generally on hand at launches, regattas, and Fourth of July celebrations," our historian reports, "with a jolly party of Boston underwriters and their friends on board ... With a rainbow of bunting over her mastheads, the brass band in full blast, and champagne corks flying about her deck, she contributed liberally to the gayety of many festive occasions.

She was also usually the first to introduce a new-born ship to the end of a manila hawser, and for several years she towed most of the eastern-built clippers to their loading berth at Boston or New York.

On her third trip, when she arrived in London with a freight of tea from Canton, China on the 12th of November 1851, the profit was calculated at $50,000.

[6] Surprise made eleven consecutive passages from China to New York in eighty-nine days or less, six from Hong-Kong, five from Shanghai.

[8] Surprise encountered a heavy gale in Kaneda Bay, off Yokohama, Japan on February 4, 1876, and struck an underwater rock.