![[ img ]](https://i.imgur.com/s8U7558.png)
Here's my first stab at a real design, the Italian seaplane carrier Giuseppe Miraglia, in what is as nearest I can tell her outfit as completed. She was originally laid down as a train ferry in 1921, but the Italian government took over her for use as a seaplane tender. This work would be delayed when in 1925, she capsized while fitting out, and under Umberto Pugliese she was salvaged and finished for service. She carried 17 Macchi M.18 seaplanes initially, which were replaced on a 1 for 1 basis before the outbreak of WW2. When she was requisitioned the Italian fleet consisted of four 21 knot dreadnoughts, and her design speed was 21 knots so that she could accompany them and provide recon. Over her service life however, her recurring stability problems forced the ship to be ballasted and bulged, reducing her speed whilst the battle line's own speed increased through refits. She was downrated to an auxiliary, and by the time war came she was no longer used as an active, front line warship, instead ferrying air force aircraft to North Africa and acting as a seaplane base where required. She survived the attack on Taranto, and for the rest of the war carried out a quiet career without incident. After the armistice she continued to serve, this time in the Royal Navy as a submarine tender, before finally returning to Italian Navy service at the end of the war. In 1950, she was scrapped, thus ending the career of one of the Regia Marina's only dedicated aviation vessels.
A note about the drawing, I could not find any information about the underwater hull anywhere, and so I've filled in instead with a "restoration" of sorts. I looked for civilian cargo ships and passenger vessels from the interwar/WW1 period with similar bow and stern construction above water. Based on them plus the draft listed on Navypedia, and information such as the size of the bulges and the number of shafts, I put together what I think is a likely representation of the underwater hull of this vessel. The rest of the drawing is based on what side diagrams I could find combined with squinting at obliquely angled, oftentimes fuzzy old photos. Based on the nature of available material, this drawing is as much interpretation as anything else, but that made it interesting.
