Government Motor Vessel (GMV) Aramoana was built in 1961 for the New Zealand Railways Department to link the North and South Island rail networks.

On 10 April 1968 Aramoana was the largest of the rescue vessels when TEV Wahine, a New Zealand inter-island ferry of the Union Company, foundered after striking Barrett Reef at the entrance to Wellington Harbour.

[11][12] In 1983, both Aramoana and Aranui were replaced by the significantly larger MV Arahura and were sold to the Najd Trading & Construction Company of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia in 1984.

By then the ship was in too poor a condition to continue and the immigrants eventually were transferred to a second smuggling vessel, the Golden Venture which beached near New York on 6 June 1993.

This was substantially more than its predecessor, the Union Steam Ship Company's ferry Tamahine, which had carried 60,000 passengers, 11,000 cars and 14,000 tonnes of cargo in the final year of service.