About 1607 or 1608, Christopher Jones and several business partners purchased the Mayflower.  Their first voyage in the ship was to Trondheim, Norway, in 1609, to bring back lumber, tar, and fish.  The Mayflower got caught in a very bad winter storm on the way home from Norway, and the captain ordered his crew to throw some of the lumber overboard to lighten the ship.  They barely survived the storm, which lasted several weeks and blew them several hundred miles off-course.

After that, Christopher Jones must not have wanted to sail the Mayflower into the cold North Sea, because he never went there again.  Instead, for the next ten years, he took the ship to La Rochelle and Bordeaux, France, and Malaga, Spain, often several times a year.  He would return to England with a ship loaded with as much as 200 tons of French wines, Cognac, and occasionally some vinegar.

In May, 1620, after returning to London from Bordeaux, France, the Pilgrims made contact with Christopher Jones, and they hired him to transport them to America.