The Pretty Little “Ben Venue.”
A regular trader to New Zealand in the seventies was Watson’s pretty little Ben Venue, an iron main skysail-yarder of 999 tons, launched by Barclay, Curle in 1867. Under Captain McGowan, she made the very fine average of 77 days for her outward passages, her best homeward being 72 days to the Lizards from Lyttelton in 1879. I have already described her loss in May, 1882.