On her second trip, _Ben Voirlich_ left Gravesend on the 9th November, Plymouth on 11th November, but was held up in the mouth of the Channel over the 12th. She crossed the equator on 1st December in 31° 20′ W.; crossed the Cape meridian on 24th December, in 45° S., and ran down her easting on the parallel of 46° 30′, her best 24-hour run being 352 miles. She arrived in Port Phillip on 14th January, 64 days out from Plymouth. From pilot to anchorage Captain McPetrie claimed to have broken _Thermoplyae’s_ record; and on _Thermopylae_ arriving in Melbourne on 4th February, only 64 days out from the Lizards, a fine wrangle started. It was a specially favourable season, and _Ben Voirlich_ was very hard driven, indeed in the roaring forties her main deck was never free of water, and the midship house and half-deck were water-logged all the time. She possessed a very hard nut of a mate, a bald-headed man with a great red beard, who was a very fine seaman. But he had no mercy on the boys, his usual greeting to a delicate-looking first voyage apprentice being “Have your people sent you to sea to escape funeral expenses or what?” The _Ben Voirlich_ had a winch just aft of her midship house, to which the fore braces were taken in the following way. The fore brace had a wire pennant with a gin block on its end. A chain was shackled to the ship’s side, then led through the gin block and down again through the bulwarks to the winch and so on to the other fore brace, thus making an endless chain. It had stoppers on it on each side to keep a little slack. In bracing the yard, it took in on one side and gave out the other, and only needed two men to work it. SPAR PLAN OF _BEN CRUACHAN_ AND _BEN VOIRLICH_. +----------------------+-----------+------------+------------+ | Spars | Fore | Main | Mizen | +----------------------+-----------+------------+------------+ |Mast—deck to truck | 139 feet| 143½ feet| 115 feet| |Lower mast | 60 ft. | 64½ ft. | 50½ ft. | |Doubling | 16 ft. | 16 ft. | 13½ ft. | |Topmast | 54½ ft. | 54½ ft. | 43½ ft. | |Doubling | 12 ft. | 11½ ft. | 9 ft. | |Topgallant mast | 30½ ft. | 30½ ft. | 26 ft. | |Royal mast | 21 ft. | 21 ft. | 18 ft. | |Lower yard | 84 ft. | 84 ft. | 70½ ft. | |Lower topsail yard | 73 ft. | 73 ft. | 59 ft. | |Upper topsail yard | 70½ ft. | 70½ ft. | 57 ft. | |Lower topgallant yard | 58½ ft. | 58½ ft. | 45 ft. | |Upper topgallant yard | 56 ft. | 56 ft. | 43 ft. | |Royal yard | 43 ft. | 44 ft. | 35 ft. | +--------------+-------+-----------+------------+------------+ |Jibboom 70 ft.|Spanker boom 51 ft.| Spanker gaff 36 ft. | +--------------+-------------------+-------------------------+