I was wondering why Old Ironsides was victorious in so many of its engagements. Was it the commanding officers, or maybe was it built differently than other ships of the era?
Since no one else has responded I will do my best to answer your question. USS Constitution and her sister ships were heavier built, larger, and carried more cannons than almost any other frigate of her era. However they could still outrun any Ship of the Line, thus it shouldn't be a big surprise that many of the early War of 1812 victories that made these ships so famous were American victories.
The USS Constitution did well for a few reasons. I'm just an enthusiast of the Age of Sail, not a historian by any means, but I'll lay down a few obvious and well-documented reasons along with a few sources. Full disclosure, I know more about the Royal Navy and most of the references I make
The Constitution was what's known as a heavy frigate. At 44 guns (oftentimes 50+), crewed by ~450 and just over 300 feet long with a top speed of 13-14 knots (almost 16mph), she was in a pretty exclusive bracket of ships: fast and strong enough to chase down and deal with virtually any merchantman or lesser ship of war (small frigates, sloops, brigs, etc), tough enough to stand toe-to-toe with any comparable ship with good odds of surviving, and fast enough to get away from groups of ships or a big heavy 3rd or 2nd rate ship-of-the line.
The Constitution's design was a smart one for the time. Proportionally the ship was very long and narrow for a frigate, and was built to mount lots of heavy guns. It was engineered from the ground up to be a world-beater, not adapted from a captured ship or a straight copy of a foreign design. The shipwright (Humphreys) had a good relationship with the dockyard where she was built in Boston, and lots of skilled labor was available at the time.
Copper sheathing on the hull helped to reduce barnacles and shipworm, which extended hull life and made the ship faster than an un-sheathed hull. This was a very expensive practice at the time, and not all ships had it.
The Naval Act of 1794 had authorized the construction of six big frigates to help combat the piracy of American ships around the globe. While a part of the British Empire, the Royal Navy protected American merchantmen. At the time, the US was still a brand-new country, and many countries didn't really take the US seriously. The Barbary Coast was a place lots of American ships traded, and pirates were having a field day with US-owned ships at the time. These six frigates were meant to patrol waters plied by American merchantmen, deterring piracy and acting as a show of force. As such, these frigates *needed to be good ships. Instead of authorizing a vast quantity of ships, Congress opted for quality.
I don't want to denigrate accomplishments, skill, or bravery of anybody involved but the Constitution's victories were mostly against ships that she outgunned. When one ship outguns another, almost invariably it's a larger ship with more men and can take more of a beating to boot. While the complement of guns varied over the years (from 44 to as many as 55), we'll stick with a nice round number of 50 for comparison:
* During the Quasi War and Barbary Wars, *Constitution* took a lot of merchant prizes and beat up on a bunch of crappy pirate vessels of varying quality.
* August 1812 vs. HMS *Guerriere*, 49 guns
* December 1812 vs. HMS *Java*, 38 guns
* February 1815 vs. HMS *Cyane* and HMS *Levant*, 24 and 18 guns respectively
* Post War of 1812, the *Constitution* never fired another shot in anger, serving with varying Mediterranean squadrons for several decades. Several prizes were taken without so much as a shot being fired.
*Another thing to consider was the monstrous -weight- of the Constitution's guns. The bulk of it's armament consisted of 24 lb. long cannons and 32 lbs. carronades. That's some seriously heavy weight for a frigate, when most of the time were armed with a mixture consisting mostly of 18 lb. and 12 lb. long guns, with a few heavy carronades and maybe some 24 lb. guns thrown into the mix.
The Constitution did indeed have a pretty thick hull for the time, something like 21 inches of oak and pine.
The quality of crews was usually pretty good. While the US didn't have the naval tradition or training regimen of the Royal Navy set in place right at the beginning, they got better with time and experience. The key to good crews of the time were good food (most sailors at better and more consistently at sea than they did in their own homes), discipline, and lots of training and structure. IMO, the Royal Navy had better training, crew-retention, and harsher discipline, but it's hard to quantify crew quality in an objective figure.
That's a somewhat rambling answer to your question, I'm not going to delve into specific commanders or campaign histories(Hull and Preble being the best I think), but I think I hit a few of the important points, and welcome anyone to expand upon them or correct me. I know that wikipedia is not exactly the best source, but I felt no qualms about using it for well-established knowledge, such as names and dates.
Sources