Sunday - At 15's elderberry t of displacement, bought last May in Hodeida for colonial service in the Red Sea is given the name Gazelle. This was followed by others, of varying displacement between the 15 and the 90 t, built to order or captured by smugglers and pirates, and normally located in Massaua and then, with the extension of the Italian protectorate to the northern coast of Migiurtinia, to Bender Ziada.

Of poor fish (from m 0,7 am 2,2), robust and maneuvering, were armed with one or two small cannons from 25 or 37 mm or with a combination of both.

From the establishment of the service in the 1902, initially on four units (Antelope, Porto Cervo, Gazelle, Zebra), gathered in squadrons under the command of a lieutenant, each elder was normally under the command of a 1st class chief helmsman assisted by a sub-chief and two or three white gunners, while the rest of the crew consisted of natives having for graduated a nakuda (master). In all, the crew of these units sui generis of the Regia Marina varied (apart from the 10 men of the first Gazelle) from 18 to 28 people.

The elders were successfully used until the 1914 always carrying out a profitable and valuable surveillance and surveillance service. [The elder o dhow (from Daw), a small tartana, is a traditional Arab sail boat with one or two Latin sails. It is typical of the coasts of the Arabian peninsula, of India and of the Swahili peoples of East Africa]

Source: Military Navy