In 1815 the aervage wage for an unskilled laborer in Britain was
around 15 shillings per week. A highly skilled craftsman like
a cooper or carpenter could make 30 shillings per week

However these costs for Victory need clarification

Do they apply to the hull only or included rigging ?

How about the guns ?


Off hand, I doubt that the guns were included in the Victory sum given.

The (iron) guns for a ship of the line would cost roughly as much as the raw
hull itself - but this is complicated by the fact that a gun could last a
very, very long time indeed, several lifetimes of an individual ship, so
that a new-built ship could inherit older guns that were already paid for so
to speak. Including the price of the guns in the ship building price would
make sense if the guns were cast especially for that ship, which sometimes
did happen esp. with bronze guns. They were around 4x as expensive as iron
ones by the way.

Staale Sannerud