In 1930 Tahiti sank without loss of life in the South Pacific Ocean due to flooding caused by a broken propeller shaft.

She was part of the convoy transporting the First Detachment of the Australian and New Zealand Imperial Expeditionary Forces, which left King George Sound, Albany, Western Australia on 1 November 1914.

When she met the rest of her convoy at Freetown in Sierra Leone, reports of disease ashore led to a quarantine order for the ships.

However, the ships were resupplied by local workers, and officers attended a conference aboard the armed merchant cruiser HMS Mantua, which had experienced an influenza outbreak three weeks earlier.

The first soldiers suffering from Spanish flu began reporting to the hospital aboard Tahiti on 26 August, the day that she left Freetown.

The conclusion of the enquiry was that overcrowding and poor ventilation had contributed to the exceptionally high infection rate and death toll.

[10] On 12 August 1930 Tahiti, carrying 103 passengers, 149 crew members, and 500 tons of general cargo, left Wellington to continue a voyage from Sydney to San Francisco.

She was about 480 nautical miles (890 km; 550 mi) southwest of Rarotonga at 20°43′S 166°16′W / 20.717°S 166.267°W / -20.717; -166.267 (RMS Tahiti) at 4:30 a.m. on 15 August 1930 when her starboard propeller shaft broke, opening a large hole in her stern and causing rapid flooding.

The US steamship Ventura was just arriving on the scene, having signalled that she could take Tahiti's passengers and crew aboard, and she picked them up soon after they abandoned ship.

[11] The court found both the crew and officials who had certified the ship's compliance with standards of seaworthiness blameless in the sinking, stated that the breaking of a propeller shaft was a common event at sea but the level of damage sustained by Tahiti in the breaking of her propeller shaft was exceedingly rare, and determined that Tahiti's sinking was "due to a peril of the sea which no reasonable human care or foresight could have avoided.

It was their courage and endurance that made it possible for the master to delay until the propitious moment, the giving of the final order to abandon the ship.