San Buena Ventura was a 120-ton ship built in Japan under the direction of the English navigator and adventurer William Adams for the shōgun Tokugawa Ieyasu.

On 30 September 1609, the Spanish galleon San Francisco with a crew of 373 was wrecked on the coast of Chiba, Japan (near the present-day town of Onjuku), and the 317 survivors were received warmly by the Japanese.

Rodrigo de Vivero answered that he could readily organize trade on a scale surpassing that of the Dutch, the main rivals of Spain in Asia at the time.

The viceroy of Nueva España decided to send an embassy to Japan in the person of the famous explorer Sebastián Vizcaíno.

He left for Japan on 22 March 1611, and after another shipwreck eventually returned in 1613 on board the Japanese-built galleon San Juan Bautista with the first official Japanese embassy to the Americas and Europe, led by Hasekura Tsunenaga.