[1] The Waitemata was launched on 28 February 1908 and delivered to the Union Steam Ship Company of New Zealand in April for their trans-Pacific cargo service.
In 1909 she took 1,200 mules from San Francisco to Fiji for the Colonial Sugar Refining Co. During World War I she was used as a troop ship.
[2] Her first journey was on 18 September 1915 as HMNZT 29 with the advance party of the 1st and 2nd Battalion NZ Rifle Brigade, 2nd Maori Contingent and details of the 6th Reinforcements of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force.
Her final voyage as a troop carrier from New Zealand was on 24 July 1917 under Captain Neilson, as HMNZT 89 with part of the 28th Reinforcements NZ Expeditionary Force.
[5] On 14 July 1918 while en route from Barry to Alexandria with a cargo of coal and calcium-carbide she was torpedoed by the Imperial German Navy submarine SM UB-105 under Kapitänleutnant Wilhelm Marschall in the Mediterranean Sea 160 km (100 miles) northeast of Marsa Susa and sunk.