In 1915, Carlo – a fisherman and mandolin player – arrives in an Adriatic fishing village with a lake boat he had purchased dreaming to convert it into a competing rowing boat for the 1918 Olympics. At first, this causes scandal and division in the village, but after the rescue of a little girl at sea, the entire community commits to refurbishing the boat and share his dream. As the war progresses, however, the men selected for the crew are called back to the front, and in 1917 – with the conflict growing increasingly bloody – the boat, renamed Reginella after of the famous Neapolitan song, is abandoned. Everything changes on November 16, when a training ship of the Royal Navy, caught in a storm, runs aground off the coast of Marotta and eleven young women immediately decide to step in to rescue the sailors. They stock the Reginella with food, medicine, and blankets and brave the stormy sea to reach the stranded ship. Their courage, which would later be honoured with a Bronze Medal for Military Valor, became legendary.
Daniela Donati, born in Rimini in 1954, teaches literature.
She has published several young adult novels among
which Il Grande Puf (Mondadori 2009, winner of the Mondadori
Junior Award), as well as a novel for adults, Ginostra
(Mobydick 2003), and several short stories.
ISBN: 9791255481720
Pub date: November 2026
Extent: 128 pp