Welcome to our Awatea website celebrating this remarkable and stylish Trans-Tasman ocean liner. This magnificent ocean liner was the fastest and most luxurious ocean liner in the Southern Hemisphere.

She was built by Vickers Armstrong Ltd, Barrow in Furness in 1936 for service on the Trans-Tasman services of the Union Steam Ship Company of New Zealand. This splendid liner had been inspired by fear of American intentions in the Pacific. In 1932 the Union Steam Ship Company faced intense competition from the heavily subsidised American Matson Line on the trans-Tasman run, which had been a Union preserve for many years. The Mariposa and Monterey outclassed any of the Union ships, so only service and seamanship could win the day. Thus the Awatea was commissioned. It was designed to serve either the Trans-Tasman trade and was one of the fastest liners in the world. Her speed, comfort, and ability to keep going with the minimum of time in port, together with the publicity sense of her master, Captain A. H. Davey, made her a popular and well-known ship.

Sadly she had a short life and was bombed and sunk in the Mediterranean in 1942 while on troopship duties to North Africa during the Second World War. Her short life means her remarkable and illustrious history is almost forgotten and her name is seldom quoted among the ranks of the world's great ocean liners even though she deserves it. 

This website aims to record the history of this fine New Zealander ocean liner and act as a virtual home to honour and commemorate this fine ship. We hope you enjoy this website and when you leave we hope you will visit again soon.

~ The Eye of the Dawn ~

Her Regular Service Route: New Zealand to Australia

Wellington and Auckland to Sydney "Trans-Tasman" service

"THE TRANS-TASMAN SERVICE"

THE UNION STEAM SHIP COMPANY OF NEW ZEALAND, AUCKLAND