A detailed painting of a shipwreck. Sea Venture was a seventeenth-century sailing ship, wrecked off Bermuda in 1609 en route to Jamestown, Virginia. After a three-day hurricane the captain deliberately drove the ship onto a reef on the east coast of Bermuda. All 150 people on board landed safely on shore. Some continued the journey to Jamestown, others became the first European settlers in Bermuda.