This ship was designed by Sir Robert Seppings, the surveyor of the Royal Navy, and built at Calcutta in 1831 for the Parsee merchant Rustomjee Cowasjee who wanted a ship that could cope with monsoons. She had a complement of 304 men and was one of the fastest early opium clippers. This was very popular with Jardine Matheson who either owned or rented the ship from Cowasjee. The vessel carried opium to London in 1832. While sailing from Calcutta to China in 1835 with a full cargo of 995 chests of opium she was stranded on a shoal in the Malay Peninsula. The hull was damaged and the opium soaked but the ship and all but two of the chests were saved through the fortunate appearance of the East India Company’s sloop ‘Clive’. Refloated and later rebuilt in Singapore, the ‘Sylph’ was chased by Chinese junks in 1841 and came close to being captured. It is thought that she was eventually captured and burnt by pirates who operated from the island of Hainan.