Originally christened Cape Clear with Lloyd's of London in 1870, she started her career as a screw steamboat with auxiliary sail carrying passengers on the Australia - Liverpool run.

She was purchased by a French firm based in Bordeaux in 1889, re-christened Georges Valentine and turned into a sailing bark by being stripped of all steam machinery except the boiler.

She was based in Camogli, northern Italy and transported lumber regularly from Pensacola, Florida to South America.

In October 1904, the Georges Valentine, with a crew of twelve men commanded by Captain Prospero Mortolo, sailed with a load of milled mahogany from Pensacola bound for Buenos Aires.

On 13 October 1904 the ship sighted Havana, Cuba, but she later hit a storm in the Florida Straits and was blown up the Atlantic coast of Florida where on 16 October 1904, despite her crew's attempts to keep her in deeper water, she ran aground in shallow water and wrecked off Hutchinson Island near Gilbert's Bar.