The Sylph was a 19th-century pilot boat first built in 1834, by Whitmore & Holbrook for John Perkins Cushing as a Boston yacht and pilot-boat for merchant and ship owner Robert Bennet Forbes.

The pilot-boat Sylph owned by China merchant and ship owner Captain Robert Bennet Forbes.

[2] According to Samuel Eliot Morison, the Sylph won the first recorded American yacht race[3] on August 3, 1835.

Two of her pilots, Charles E. Warren and Isaish Harlan boarded ships before the storm.

[8][9] On November 9, 1883, the Sylph sank in a winter storm on Georges Bank with all hands.

The shipyard was founded by Nathaniel Porter Keen who was a ship, yacht, and boat builder.

[11][5]: p166  She was registered with the Record of American and Foreign Shipping from 1881 to 1898 to J. H. Wilson as master and to A. Nash & Co. as owners.

Captain Joseph W. Colby of the Sylph, picked up the fishing boat ten miles east of Highland Light as her rigging had fallen to pieces with no sail.

8, rescued the naphtha launch Tirzah, forty-five miles southeast of the Boston Light.

[15] In November 1899, many transatlantic liners were used as supply ships during the South African wars, which caused some of the Boston pilot-boats to be placed out of commission.

[17] When the Boston pilots reorganized down to five boats, the pilot-boat Sylph was sold out of service on June 1, 1901, to Captain Burgess of the Metropolitan coal company.