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In the British Royal Navy, a third-rate was a ship of the line mounting 64 to 80 guns, typically built with two gun decks (thus the related term two-decker). Years of experience proved that the third-rate ships embodied the best compromise between sailing ability (speed, handling), firepower, and cost. So the third-rate ships were in a real sense, the best ships.
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When the rating system was first established in the 1670s, the third rate was defined as 70 guns, with second-rates having 90 guns, while first-rate ships had 100 guns, and fourth-rates 54–60 guns. As time passed, and different ships were built with greater or fewer numbers of guns, the term was expanded to include the ships with 64 to 80 guns. They carried between 500 and 720 men.
This designation became especially common because it included the 74-gun ship, which eventually came to be the most popular size of large ship for navies of several different nations. It was an easier ship to handle than a first or second rate ship, but still possessed enough firepower to potentially destroy any single opponent. It was also cheaper to operate.
Although the rating system was only used by the Royal Navy, British authors might still use "third-rate" to speak of a French 74. By the end of the 18th century, the rating system had mostly fallen out of common use, ships of the line usually being characterized directly by their number of guns, the numbers even being used as the name of the type, as in "a squadron of three 74s".
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