I'm trying to understand the cost of building an oceangoing ship in
some terms I can understand. I great answer would be of the form
"To build an 80 ft sailing vessel in 1492 took about 14,000 man/hours" or
something like that.

Or "One could buy a 100 ft sailing vessel in Venice for 9000 florins,
and each florin could hire a skilled worker for a week."

I'm interested in any time period from ancient Egypt to maybe Napoleon.
I'm just trying to get an order of magnitude informed guess.

Significant Google searching didn't help. Can anyone here help?

On Mon, 25 Aug 2003 20:33:51 -0400, "Charles Talleyrand"
wrote:

I'm interested in any time period from ancient Egypt to maybe Napoleon.
I'm just trying to get an order of magnitude informed guess.
Significant Google searching didn't help. Can anyone here help?

10 seconds of Googling for HMS VICTORY indicates that she "cost £63,176. For
comparison, this would be equivalent to the cost of building an aircraft
carrier today."

http://www.hms-victory.com/factsandfigures.htm

--
Andrew Toppan --- --- "I speak only for myself"
"Haze Gray & Underway" - Naval History, DANFS, World Navies Today,
Photo Features, Military FAQs, and more - http://www.hazegray.org/

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

"Andrew Toppan" wrote in message ...
On Mon, 25 Aug 2003 20:33:51 -0400, "Charles Talleyrand"
wrote:

I'm interested in any time period from ancient Egypt to maybe Napoleon.
I'm just trying to get an order of magnitude informed guess.
Significant Google searching didn't help. Can anyone here help?

10 seconds of Googling for HMS VICTORY indicates that she "cost £63,176. For
comparison, this would be equivalent to the cost of building an aircraft
carrier today."

http://www.hms-victory.com/factsandfigures.htm



And the USS Constitution cost $302,718 in 1797 US dollars,
although the Brits could build a 74 gun ship for less.
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/s...nstitution.htm
http://www.geocities.com/Broadway/Al...43/supfrig.htm


I'm trying to understand these numbers in terms of something like
manhours needed to build the ship. I note that the pay for a US
sailor was 10-17 US$ per month. Therefore it took something
like 25,000 man-months to build a Constitution (or a British 74).
Does this seem reasonable?

If you're curious, the Constition was 3x over budget in part due to
political problems with Congressional funding, and is therefore a bad
example to use. That's why I'm asking for other examples. And please
don't pull this thread into a 'Congress has always sucked' direction. Can
we please have one thread without current politics?

Can someone offer other examples, particularly from a different
time period and/or a different sized ship? That would be
most helpful.


-Thanks

"Charles Talleyrand" wrote in message ...
"Andrew Toppan" wrote in message ...
On Mon, 25 Aug 2003 20:33:51 -0400, "Charles Talleyrand"
wrote:

I'm interested in any time period from ancient Egypt to maybe Napoleon.
I'm just trying to get an order of magnitude informed guess.
Significant Google searching didn't help. Can anyone here help?

10 seconds of Googling for HMS VICTORY indicates that she "cost £63,176. For
comparison, this would be equivalent to the cost of building an aircraft
carrier today."

http://www.hms-victory.com/factsandfigures.htm



And the USS Constitution cost $302,718 in 1797 US dollars,
although the Brits could build a 74 gun ship for less.
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/s...nstitution.htm
http://www.geocities.com/Broadway/Al...43/supfrig.htm


I'm trying to understand these numbers in terms of something like
manhours needed to build the ship. I note that the pay for a US
sailor was 10-17 US$ per month. Therefore it took something
like 25,000 man-months to build a Constitution (or a British 74).
Does this seem reasonable?

If you're curious, the Constition was 3x over budget in part due to
political problems with Congressional funding, and is therefore a bad
example to use. That's why I'm asking for other examples. And please
don't pull this thread into a 'Congress has always sucked' direction. Can
we please have one thread without current politics?

Can someone offer other examples, particularly from a different
time period and/or a different sized ship? That would be
most helpful.



J. Richard Steffy, Wooden Shipbuilding and the Interpetation of
Shipwrecks, Texas A&M University Press, 1994.

"Jack Linthicum" wrote in message
om...


Can someone offer other examples, particularly from a different
time period and/or a different sized ship? That would be
most helpful.



J. Richard Steffy, Wooden Shipbuilding and the Interpetation of
Shipwrecks, Texas A&M University Press, 1994.

While doing a little research thus lunchtime I came across the
following site which has some interesting data regarding the
early USN

http://www.iment.com/maida/familytre...psonletter.htm

No construction costs I'm afraid but some information
on running costs

Keith

"Charles Talleyrand" wrote in message
...

[ SNIP ]
Can someone offer other examples, particularly from a different
time period and/or a different sized ship? That would be
most helpful.

I offered one example - the bomb vessel series from 1692 - in another post
in this thread. Keith helpfully corrected me on contemporary wages,
suggesting that skilled labour at the time (shipwrights etc) was probably
closer to 25 pounds per individual per annum.

The construction cost estimates that I cited for those bomb vessels were
2828 pounds total - of that, 1919 pounds were for the timber, planks,
trenails, pitch, tar, mast, sundry material and workmanship, masts and
yards, and 909 pounds were for furnishing with rigging and ground tackle
sails and sea stores for the boatswain's and carpenter's store, and eight
months provision of sea stores.

This Navy Board estimate does not include ordnance stores.

Again, without including ordnance stores, Chris Ware states that the total
cost of purchased/converted bombs in the period 1690-95 was 13,315 pounds
(this for eight vessels), and 31,872 pounds for fourteen purpose-built
bombs. For purposes of comparison, he mentions that with this total
expenditure (45,187 pounds) one could have purchased two Third Rates
(without sea and ordnance stores).

Costs of the INFERNAL class of bombs (late 1750's) ranged from 3355 to 3758
pounds. These are building costs only. In fact, a average of another 400
pounds was expended per vessel of this class to fit them for service (i.e.
fitting the mortar beds), and the cost would still not include the ordnance.

As another complementary set of figures, from the same source, we find that
the costs of fitting out a 1690's bomb with mortars and ordnance stores was:

ca. 3480 pounds for a 13in mortar and all materials and officers to attended
(wages for Ordnance staff)
60 pounds for the mortar @ 12s per ton
140 pounds for two carriages
700 pounds for five hundred 12 1/4 inch bombs (the HE ammo)
175 pounds for 125 carcasses (incendiary ammo)
ca. 14 pounds for 750 fuzes
480 pounds for a 100 ton tender

Of course, one then still has to add wages for officers and seamen who
manned the vessel. As this helps also give an idea of the costs of a ship,
I'll note that Michael Lewis ("The Navy of Britain") mentions that in the
13th and 14th centuries the average seaman received 9 shillings a month.
These wages dropped considerably in the following few centuries. In the mid
1600's the wages for a seaman were 14-15 shillings per month, but
considering inflation, things had actually gotten worse. Of course, at close
to ten pounds per annum, in the 17th century, the average sailor was doing
better than most. After the Spithead mutiny in 1797, pay was roughly a
shilling per day (assuming you actually got paid).

If you look at Web sources like
http://www.ex.ac.uk/~RDavies/arian/current/howmuch.html, I think you'll find
that there is a great deal of information about wages and costs at various
times.

AHS

In article , Charles Talleyrand
writes
Can someone offer other examples, particularly from a different
time period and/or a different sized ship? That would be
most helpful.

A quick dig through 'The History of Ships', Peter Kemp, ISBN
1-84013-504-2 gives:

Prince Royal 1610, 114x43ft, 1330 tons, 55 guns:
Overall building cost was 20,000 pounds
of which 441 went on carving and 868 7s on painting/guilding

Sovereign of the Seas 1637 (size not mentioned)
Overall building cost 65,586 pounds 16s 9.5d (including guns)
of which 6,691 pounds on carving & decoration.

--
John

A quick dig through 'The History of Ships', Peter Kemp, ISBN
1-84013-504-2 gives:

Prince Royal 1610, 114x43ft, 1330 tons, 55 guns:
Overall building cost was 20,000 pounds
of which 441 went on carving and 868 7s on painting/guilding

Sovereign of the Seas 1637 (size not mentioned)
Overall building cost 65,586 pounds 16s 9.5d (including guns)
of which 6,691 pounds on carving & decoration.

--
John

Note that both of these ships were large "prestige" vessels and _absurdly_
expensive for their firepower. The Sovereign (100 guns btw) especially so.

Staale Sannerud

On Mon, 25 Aug 2003 21:05:02 -0400, Andrew Toppan
wrote:

On Mon, 25 Aug 2003 20:33:51 -0400, "Charles Talleyrand"
wrote:

I'm interested in any time period from ancient Egypt to maybe Napoleon.
I'm just trying to get an order of magnitude informed guess.
Significant Google searching didn't help. Can anyone here help?

10 seconds of Googling for HMS VICTORY indicates that she "cost £63,176. For
comparison, this would be equivalent to the cost of building an aircraft
carrier today."

http://www.hms-victory.com/factsandfigures.htm

That's an obviously incorrect comparison. How many first rates
did the world have just before the Napoleonic wars? How many
aircraft carriers does it have now? What was the population then,
what is is now?

If the text were written in the 1940's, it might make sense but
today?
____

Peter Skelton