selected the French design over a competing proposal from the Baltic Works. A contract was signed on 20 July 1898 at a cost of 30.28 million francs (11.355 million rubles) for delivery in 42 months. Tsesarevichs most obvious design feature was her tumblehome hull. This had several advantages because it allowed greater freeboard since the narrow upper decks reduced the structural weight of the vessel's hull, it increased the field of fire of guns mounted on the sides, and it reduced the ship's roll in heavy seas. Its great disadvantage was that it reduced buoyancy and stability which contributed to excessive heel during turns. During the Battle of the Yellow Sea in August 1904, Imperial Japanese Navy observers thought the Tsesarevich was going to capsize when she suddenly turned out of the battleline. Tsesarevich was long overall, had a beam of and a draught of . The ship displaced . Her crew consisted of 28–29 officers and 750 enlisted men. The ship was powered by two vertical triple-expansion steam engines using steam generated by 20 Belleville boilers at a working pressure of . The boilers were fitted with economizers that preheated their feed water. The engines were rated at and designed to reach a top speed of . Tsesarevich handily exceeded her design speed and reached from during her official machinery trials in July–August 1903. She normally carried of coal, but could carry a maximum of . This allowed the ship to steam for at a speed of . Tsesarevich was fitted with six steam-driven electric generators with a total capacity of . Armament and fire control Tsesarevichs main armament consisted of two pairs of 40-calibre 12-inch guns mounted in electrically powered twin-gun turrets, one forward and one aft of the superstructure. The guns and their mountings were Russian-built, but the turrets themselves were made in France. The guns could be loaded at all angles of elevation and the turrets could traverse 270°. Trials revealed that the ammunition hoists tended to jam when the ship was rolling; the shipyard shipped new hoists to Port Arthur because the Russians wanted the ship in the Far East as soon as possible and they were installed in January 1904. The ship carried 70 rounds per gun. The guns fired one shell every 90–132 seconds. They fired a shell at a muzzle velocity of to a range of at an elevation of 15°. The