Why the Royal Navy kept building second rates

A three-decked second rate needed extra height and beam to carry its upper battery. Its resulting length-to-beam ratio made speed and handling worse than in a longer ship. Those limitations sharpen the procurement question because the well-funded Royal Navy kept building the type from the late seventeenth century into the 1810s. Thomas Slade's Barfleur-class designs, including Prince George and Princess Royal, show that second rates remained part of serious naval construction. Repeated investment suggests that the fleet accepted weaker sailing qualities in exchange for the type's wider force-structure role.