These were nothing extraordinary; however she again made a very good passage and arrived at Melbourne on 29th May, 75 days out. She left Melbourne again at 5 p.m. on 10th June, with 40 cabin passengers and £280,000 of gold dust.
Her best runs this passage were, of course, made on the way to the Horn, being:—
| June 15 | 314 miles. |
| „ 16 | 322 „ |
| „ 16 | 322 „ |
| „ 17 | 294 „ |
| „ 18 | 260 „ |
| „ 19 | 324 „ |
| „ 20 | 316 „ |
| „ 20 | 316 „ |
| „ 21 | 322 „ |
| Total for week 2152 miles. | |
But on the 23rd in 60° S. her progress was severely stopped by large quantities of small ice, which tore all the copper off her bow.
On the 26th June, when in 141° W., a large ship was sighted astern which proved to be Money Wigram’s famous Blackwaller Kent, which had sailed 5 days ahead of Marco Polo.
From 27th June to 1st July only small runs could be made, the ship being surrounded by ice, but with strong northerly winds to help her, she cleared the ice on the 1st and at once started to make up time, running 303 miles on 2nd July, 332 on the 3rd, 364 on the 4th and 345 on the 5th. And on 18th July in 49° 30′ S., with strong S.W. wind, she made her last run of over 300.
However, in spite of these fine runs to the southward, the passage was a good deal longer than Forbes anticipated, as Marco Polo was 95 days out when, on 13th September she arrived in the Mersey.
Nevertheless she had made the round voyage in the very good time of exactly 6 months, and when Captain Forbes appeared “on Change” about 1 o’clock on the 13th “the cheering was long and loud and he received a hearty welcome from all the merchants assembled.”