SS Baltic (1850)

Baltic
History
United States
Name	Baltic
Namesake	Baltic Sea
Operator	Collins Line
Route	New York-Liverpool
Builder	Brown & Bell, New York
Cost	~$750,000[1]
Launched	5 Feb 1850
Maiden voyage	16 Nov 1850
In service	16 Nov 1850
Out of service	1880
Refit	As a sailing ship, 1870
Honors and awards	Blue Riband holder, 16 Aug 1851–29 Apr 1856
Fate	Scrapped, 1880
General characteristics
Type	Passenger
Tonnage	2,723 gross tons
Length	282 ft (86 m)
Beam	45 ft (14 m)
Depth of hold	24 ft
Propulsion	2 × 500 hp, 96-inch bore, 10-foot stroke single-cylinder side-lever steam engines
Speed	13 knots
Capacity	Passengers: 200 1st class, 80 2nd class

SS Baltic was a wooden-hulled sidewheel steamer built in 1850 for transatlantic service with the American Collins Line. Designed to outclass their chief rivals from the British-owned Cunard Line, Baltic and her three sister ships—Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic—were the largest, fastest and most luxurious transatlantic steamships of their day.

Less than a year after entering service, Baltic captured the coveted Blue Riband in 1851 for fastest transatlantic crossing by a steamship. She set a new record again in 1854, and was to remain the fastest steamship on the Atlantic for almost five years. In spite of these record-breaking achievements however, her Collins Line owners continued to lose money, and were eventually bankrupted in 1858.

Baltic subsequently operated as a coastal steamer along the East Coast of the United States, and later served as a transport for the Union cause during the American Civil War before briefly returning to transatlantic service. In her final years she was converted into a sailing ship. Baltic was scrapped in 1880.