 The battleships were constrained by the size of existing Spanish harbor facilities to around , since the government lacked the funding to dredge harbors and enlarge dry docks to accept larger vessels.The delay enabled Spain to take advantage of experience gained by Britain with the world's first commissioned all-big-gun battleship, , along with those of other major naval powers that had already built their own "dreadnoughts".As the Navy had little experience designing capital ships, it issued a set of specifications for the battleships and requested proposals from foreign shipbuilders, securing tenders from British, French, Italian, and Austro-Hungarian shipyards.