Andrew Toppan wrote:

10 seconds of Googling for HMS VICTORY indicates that she "cost =
=A363,176. For
comparison, this would be equivalent to the cost of building an aircraft
carrier today." =20

According to the calculator at the Economic History Services
website (http://www.eh.net/ehresources/howmuch/poundq.php),
=A363,176 in 1765 would be the equivalent of about =A35.3 million in
2002. I don't think you could build much of an aircraft carrier
for that.

That's not so much to dispute the HMS Victory website as to show
that trying to compare purchasing power from different eras is a
tricky business.

Mark Sieving