She performed two voyages as an "extra" ship for the British East India Company (EIC) and later, in 1803, she accompanied HMS Calcutta to Port Phillip.
[7] Originally, Ocean was to be a whaler owned by the newly operating South Sea fishers, Thomas and Edward Hurrys, who were bankrupt by 1806.
That is, the EIC chartered her on a per-voyage basis, rather than having her on long-term contract; extra ships were usually smaller than the regular East Indiaman.
She left Bengal on 27 March 1797 with a cargo of sugar and in a convoy escorted by the frigate HMS Fox.
She sailed from the Cape on 26 August as part of a convoy of 16 East Indiamen and six British warships, reaching Saint Helena on 11 September.
She reached the Cape of Good Hope on 14 January 1799, Madras on 9 May, Coringa on 16 June and Calcutta on 17 July.
[11] The British Government chartered Ocean from Messrs Hurry & Co as a supply ship for the journey from Portsmouth to Port Phillip.
Many of the free settlers had skills that would be of value to the new settlement – five were carpenters, two seamen, two millers, a whitesmith (works with white or light coloured metals such as tin or pewter), a stonemason, gardener, painter, schoolteacher, pocketbook maker (maker of wallets and covered notebooks) and two servants.
[6] While in Rio, Captain Woodriff of Calcutta sent five marines under Lieutenant Sladden to help maintain order on Ocean for the rest of the voyage.
Cloths were washed; repairs and adjustments made to the rigging of both ships and supplies of water were replenished.
The ships did lose contact so Ocean did not put in at Cape Town, arriving at Port Phillip on 7 October.
Twenty days out of Rio, George Harris recorded that ‘for many days we could not sit at table but were obliges to hold fast by boxes and on the floor and all our crockery were almost broken to pieces, besides many seas into the cabin and living in the state of darkness from the cabin windows being stopped up by the deadlights … I was never so melancholy in my life before’.
Ocean and Calcutta established the first settlement at Port Phillip in 1803 under the leadership of Lt Col David Collins.
The escaping convicts cut loose a boat from Ocean and succeed in getting to shore, where two were recaptured, one of whom, Charles Shaw, was shot and seriously wounded.
The escapees intended to head north to Sydney, so they followed the bay to the mouth of the Yarra River, but there their scarce provisions ran out.
William Buckley decided to return to the beach alone and continued to follow the bay round to the opposite head in the hope of seeing and signalling to Ocean, but by this time it had left.
[16] When this settlement was abandoned, Ocean, in two journeys, relocated the settlers, convicts, and marines to the River Derwent (Hobart Town) in 1804.
[20][21] Most sources credit the discovery to Captain Jared Gardner of the American vessel Diana on 3 January 1801.