The new Livadia, intended for service on the Black Sea, was a radically novel ship conceived by Vice Admiral Andrey Popov, designed by naval architect Erast Gulyaev and built by John Elder & Co. of Govan on the Clyde.

[4] An extreme example of tumblehome architecture, she sported a conventionally shaped superstructure mounted on a wide, flat-bottomed, turbot-shaped submerged hull or pontoon.

[4] The maiden voyage of the Livadia revealed that her wide flat bottom was highly prone to damage by wave slamming.

She spent her brief career as a yacht in the docks and was used for her intended purpose only once, carrying Grand Dukes Constantine and Mikhail across the Black Sea.

Alexander III had no interest in resurrecting an inherently flawed ship, and in August 1881 Livadia was moored in Nikolaev and then hulked and stripped of her former luxuries.

She sank a Turkish schooner, survived the perils of the war but on the night of October 21–22, 1878 ran aground near Cape Tarkhan-Kut in western Crimea.

Vice Admiral Andrey Popov, the influential chairman of the Naval Technical Commission (MTK), objected and proposed a different concept based on his circular ships.

[14] Under-performance was punishable by hefty liquidated damages, and the Russians reserved the right for a full money back guarantee if the ship failed to make 14 knots.

[18] In November 1879, when the double bottom was two-thirds complete[17] (but not formally laid down yet),[3] Popov persuaded the imperial authorities to award interior finishes contact to the British,[17] and hired Tideman to review the design again.

[18] Tideman built another 1:10 scale model, ran another series of tests and recommended changes to the powerplant and propeller arrangement that caused a significant extension of the contract.

[20] Tideman found what he claimed was near-perfect propeller configuration: all three screws had the same diameter but varied in blade pitch, which in practice required running the engines at different revolutions per minute.

[18] The Livadia was launched on July 7, 1880 in front of ten thousand[21] spectators and visitors which included Grand Duke Alexey,[11] the future General Admiral of the Imperial Navy.

[11] Back in Russia, terrorists were hunting down Alexander II, and the British press rumored that the Livadia "was about to be blown by the Nihilists' infernal machines".

[5] On September 30 the Russian crew of 24 officers and 321 enlisted men boarded the ship, raised the flag of Saint Andrew and began preparations for a homeward voyage.

[1] The Livadia left Greenock on October 3 with Popov, Tideman, Edward James Reed and William Houston Stewart on board.

[27] She safely reached Brest on October 7, where she picked up General Admiral of the Imperial Navy Grand Duke Constantine.

[27] Around 10 a.m. of the next day the hull cracked, the space between inner and outer bottoms was flooded, and Vogak rushed his ship to a safe anchorage in Ferrol.

[30] He wrote that the damage had dual mechanism: first, when the flat pontoon pitched above the waves, gravity subjected it to an enormous stress, bending the whole structure down.

[32] The new drydock in Nikolaev, designed by Clark Stanfield specifically for the battleship Novgorod and the other popovkas, had not yet been expanded to fit the Livadia.

"[12] According to the New York Times, on December 10 the Russians dispatched 83 men to assist repairs on the Livadia while still entertaining plans to build a 12,000-ton Livadia-style armed ironclad.

[34] The Livadia, captained by Vice Admiral Ivan Shestakov, proceeded with utmost caution, evading rough waves at all costs.

[28] Shestakov reported easy steering, perfect stability and good build quality of the Livadia but advised against using her as a royal yacht until further tests could attest to her safety for Black Sea operations.

His successor, Alexander III, was facing continuing terrorist threat, civil unrest, pogroms of the Jews and other problems of far greater importance than Popov's yacht.

Popov fell out of favor: Alexander III had no faith in old Navy brass and delegated naval matters to his younger brother Grand Duke Alexey.

[28] She raised the ensign of the Commander of the Black Sea Fleet, picked up Grand Dukes Constantine and Mikhail in Yalta and carried them to Batumi and back.

[32] The Department of the Navy at first agreed, but then issued a countermanding order subjecting the Livadia to speed trials before any major repairs.

[32] The failure to make 15 knots sparked allegations of fraud against Popov and his Scottish contractor, but was ultimately explained by the incompetence of the crew and low quality of local coal.

[31] In April 1883 the Livadia was renamed Opyt (Russian: Опыт, Experiment or Test) and left to rot while the Navy discussed her fate.

[38] Plans to convert her into a troopship were discarded, and by the end of the decade her engines had been removed and installed in Minin, General Admiral and Duke of Edinburgh.

[38] Experience of the Livadia attracted shipbuilders' interest in the beginning of the 20th century, when the risk of torpedo attack forced the navies to reconsider ship protection technique and employ submerged anti-torpedo bulges.