[2][3] Each cabin was provided with a hand basin containing hot and cold running water, and every berth had a reading lamp.

On Boxing Day, 26 December 1934 she set a personal record, carrying 2,300 passengers (the maximum possible under her license) from Wellington to Picton.

[6][7] On 14 April 1938, while attempting to depart from Wellington in 70 mph (110 km/h) winds and carrying around 1,000 passengers, Rangatira's anchor fouled with the docked cruiser HMS Achilles.

The cruiser was ripped from her moorings, dragging anchor and damaging her propellers on the concrete pier piles, before coming to rest on a soft mud bank before being freed four hours later by two harbor tugs.

After ten hours aground, Rangatira, with the assistance of Lyttelton and the newly arrived Karitane, a fellow Union Company vessel, freed herself from the reef during high tide.

[11][12][13] At 2:00 am on Christmas Day 25 December 1959 Rangatira went aground on the Wheke Rocks inside the entrance to the Tory Channel.