Khrabryi-class ship of the line

The Ottoman Empire had grown increasingly weak by the 1820s, particularly after a combined French, British, and Russian fleet annihilated an Ottoman fleet at the Battle of Navarino in 1827. The power vacuum increased tension with Britain and France over influence in the region, prompting Russian fears of a conflict with the other two Great Powers. At the time, the British and French navies began to move away from the traditional seventy-four as improved building techniques allowed them to design larger two-decked ships of the line armed with 84 guns while retaining the hull strength of the 74-gun ships. And at the same time, the navy of the Eyalet of Egypt also began to build a powerful fleet. To prepare itself for an anticipated future conflict involving the British, French, Egyptians, or Ottomans, Russia began a construction program in the 1830s to strengthen the Black Sea Fleet that included nine 84-gun ships; unlike the shallower Baltic Sea, ships built for the Black Sea could make use of the deeper draft needed for the larger eighty-fours. The Khrabryi class were among the last of these to be built, and Imperatritsa Maria was the final eighty-four to be completed.^[1]

The ships of the Khrabryi class were 200 feet (61 m) long, with a beam of 56 ft 8 in (17.27 m) and a draft of 24 ft (7.3 m). The ships were given a broad beam to allow them to carry a heavy battery of 68-pound guns on their lower decks. They displaced 4,160 metric tons (4,090 long tons; 4,590 short tons).^[2]

The ships carried a different battery of guns. Khrabryi was armed with twenty-eight 68-pounder shell-firing Paixhans guns and four 36-pounder long guns on the lower gun deck and another thirty-two 36-pound short-barreled guns on the upper gun deck. In her forecastle and quarterdeck, she mounted twenty-four 24-pound gunnades, two 24-pound carronades, six 18-pound carronades, two 12-pound carronades, and two 8-pound carronades. Imperatritsa Maria, meanwhile, carried only four of the 68-pounder Paixhans guns, with the rest of her lower battery deck filled with twenty-eight 36-pounder long guns. Her upper deck battery consisted of four more 68-pound shell guns and another twenty-eight 36-pound short-barreled guns. In her forecastle and quarterdeck, she mounted just twenty 24-pound gunnades.^[2][3]