Ultimately the revolutionary excesses of the period would prove disastrous for the French Navy . Poor leadership , conflicting and arbitrary orders and the decimation of the experienced seamen in the ranks promoted a negative attitude in the French officer corps . The French battlefleet did not contest British dominance in Northern European waters again , and their raiding operations repeatedly ended in failure at the hands of more confident British squadrons and the unforgiving Atlantic weather . By 1805 , when the last great French fleet to take to the sea was crushed at the Battle of Trafalgar , poor training and low investment in the Navy had reduced its efficiency to levels unthinkable 20 years earlier .