 One of his ancestors, Avtonom Dubasov had participated in the capture of a Swedish galley in 1709.In 1870 Dubasov graduated from the Naval Cadet Corps in Petersburg; the equivalent of the modern Russian Naval Academy named after Nikolai Gerasimovich Kuznetsov.Fyodor Dubasov participated in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878 as a minelayer commander with the Danube Military Flotilla.