SU N DAY, 19 APRIL 2026
14 diners. Further aft still was a large and well-appointed saloon complete with a piano. The vessel soon became famous and known in Italian as La nave dei miracoli ('the ship of miracles'). While sailing across the Bay of Biscay in April 1920 an interesting 'first' was established – guests danced in the saloon to broadcast music coming from the ballroom of the Savoy Hotel in London. Later, on 15 June, the voice of the famous soprano Nellie Melba was heard at a distance of 2000 miles during a broadcast from the Marconi transmitting station at Chelmsford in England. [11] The luxurious accommodation was deemed necessary to impress distinguished guests – these would later include King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy and King George V of the United Kingdom. In September 1920 another guest on board was Marconi's friend, the Italian poet and nationalist Gabriele
D'Annunzio. Elettra had put in at the port of Fiume (now Rijeka) in an uno ffi cial attempt by Marconi to persuade D'Annunzio to drop his demands for that city to become part of Italy. Marconi allowed him to use the ship's transmitter, whereupon D'Annunzio made an impassioned speech to the world in which he urged Italy to annexe the territory. On 31 March 1930 Benito Mussolini visited the yacht when she was lying o ff Fiumicino. [12] This was followed with another visit in June 1930 when she was o ff Ostia. Mussolini, who was greatly interested in long distance wireless telegraphy and telephony, expressed a wish to be put through to London and communication was made via the Marconi wireless station, with its receivers at Bridgeport and transmitters and beam aerials at Dorchester in Dorset. [13] This formed part of the Imperial Wireless Chain that linked London with the British Empire. He had hoped to speak to Sir Basil Blackett but the latter was unavailable and so he conversed for a while with an operator at the station, commenting later on the clarity of the speech. [14] With a crew of some 30, Elettra was able to sail long distances without needing to refuel; in 1922 she first crossed the Atlantic to New York, surviving the e ff ects of a severe storm. [15] An important crew member was the radio o ffi cer, Adelmo Landini, who was known as the 'marconista', the Italian term equivalent to 'sparks' in English. [16] Landini, who sailed with Marconi from 1927 to 1931, had been a wireless operator decorated for gallantry in the army during the Great War. He was not only a skilled Morse code operator but also a self-taught expert in wireless technology. As such he not only assumed the duties of the yacht's radio o ffi cer but also assisted Marconi with his experiments. Indeed Landini later became an experimenter and inventor in his own right, registering seven patents for his inventions. In 1938/39, he registered a patent concerning the bouncing of radio waves o ff the surface of the Moon – a phenomenon that he had first become aware of while serving on Elettra . In 1931 while the vessel was en route from Cannes to Santa Margherita Ligure, Landini lost his
Maggie Marriott
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