The Carlo Alberto was an armoured cruiser built for the Italian Navy at Spezia in 1896. She was a steel-hulled ship of 6,500 tons displacement. Complement 500. Length (pp.) 324% ft., beam 59 ft., maximum draft 243/4ft. Guns: Twelve 6-in 40 cal.; Six 4.7-in., 40 ca. Fourteen 6-pdr. Two 1-pdr. Four torpedo tubes (above water). Her machinery consisted of two sets of 3-cylinder triple-expansion engines.Twin screws. Eight cylindrical boilers, designed horse power, 8,600. Speed 17 knots She carried a normal bunkerage of 600 tons of coal, with a maximum of 1,000 tons and fuel. Speed on trials was 17.7 knots. Her engines were built by Ansaldo.
In the book Wireless at Sea — the first fifty years" a biography of Marconi International Marine Com¬munications Ltd. it is stated:"The Marcheso Luigi Slari an early friend and collaborator of Marconi, has recalled that he and Marconi were on board the Carlo Alberto when that Italian cruiser was at St. Petersburg in July 1902, on the occasion of the visit paid by the King of Italy to the Czar of Russia. . ."
Marconi had established for the first time wireless communication between Russia and Britian (Poldhu). The Russian inventor Popoff visited the Carlo Alberto to pay tribute to Marconi. Shaking him by the hand, Popoff said "I should like to greet the father of wireless telegraphy."
SG603 Sea Breezes 1/75