I will say they had sufficient ships at least by 1790,
Which “ships” are you talking about? Of course, Russia did have the Baltic and Black Sea fleets but the big ships would be pretty much useless on the Pacific coast with its absent infrastructure and close to zero access to the materials needed for keeping them functional. The development of the flotilla was complicated by the low-developed woodworking industry, the lack of iron and weapons industry in the region. This is why the Okhotsk flotilla of the mid-/late-XVIII had brigantine, sloop, couple galliots, and few even smaller ships built (AFAIK) locally. In the early-/mid-XIX its size grew but with the addition of the small ships: Okhotsk wharf could not build the big ones. Even the ships coming from the Baltic fleet were of the same types with the exception of a single frigate under command of then captain of the 2nd rank, M. Lazarev. Other prominent (later) commanders were Kotzebue, Lütke and Wrangel so it was hardly an issue of incompetence. 😉
The first circumnavigation had been made on the ships purchased in Britain by the captains who spent few years serving in the RN.
the issue was never primarily the ships but the lack of quality crews/captains and the meddling of Governor Baranov.
To start with, Baranov never was a “governor”, he was a chief administrator of the RAC, which was a private enterprise. If anything, he was conductive to establishing a wharf on which, under the direction of a British sea captain working for the RAC, a sea-going sailing ship was built at
Resurrection Bay. He could not “meddle” in the business of the Okhotsk
Military flotilla because he was a civilian operating from Alaska (fort Novoarchangelsk) and flotilla was subordinated to the Navy and based on Okhotsk.
Though I will say the Governor also wasn't keen on spending what he needed to on good ships resulting in more than a few being rather poor quality. Still due to mostly crew issues(the crews weren't trained) they lost a ship almost every eighteen months for nearly forty years.
The RAC’s ships were pretty much irrelevant to the discussed issue: they were small ships dedicated to the trading operations and could not/would not carry any serious numbers of the settlers. OTL settlements in Alaska and California were more or less their limit. Not to mention, as I already said, that the numbers of volunteers were quite low and the company did not have an access to the state resources (Cossacks and state peasants) which later had been used to populate the Southern Far East.
As far as Okhotsk/Siberian flotilla was involved, it was for years conducting research of the Northern Pacific and carried troops and supplies for the Russian Far East ports. So hardly its captains and crews had been inexperienced. However, it also suffered regular losses: between 1760 and 1790 it lost 4 ships. Should not be a big surprise: the ships had been small and Pacific is not some kind of a peaceful pond. 😂 Laperouse lost his whole expedition and he was quite experienced sailor.
So even having better ships wouldn't be enough because they'd end up destroyed by their untrained, low morale and often newly made crews
See above. There were sailors familiar with the region and operating in it since at least 1730. However, there were no adequate resources to increase the naval presence to a meaningful degree until the circumnavigation became more or less routine and the ships and their crews started coming from the Baltic. Well, getting back to the initial point, these ships (from Krusenstern to Nevelskoy) had been rather small and would not be able to support sizable resettlements even if this was their task.
Edit: I don't think I made it clear enough, I mostly agree with you.
Thanks. 🤗