Built in 1925 at the Bath Iron Works in Maine,the Nobska was named after Nobska Point, Woods Hole, on Cape Cod in Massachusetts.

Two hundred and ten feet long, she had a four-cylinder triple-expansion steam engine and could make 14 knots. She ran many different routes for the Steamship Authority over her decades of service for southeastern Massachusetts, mainly for the Cape and Islands but also including New Bedford.

Although launched as the Nobska, from 1928 to 1956 she was named the Nantucket. Since she was renamed Nobska in 1956, two other Steamship Authority vessels have had that name: the later Naushon, and the current Nantucket itself.

She was considered elegant and, at the time of her launch, modern, "the queen of the Sounds." In 2006 one reporter wrote that "She embodied style, grace and modern technology, and was an immediate hit with the Islanders she served," and that she was "beloved" by many during her years of service. In her later years she was "the grand lady of the ferry service."