I Can't seem to Decide on a Scale

Model of Océan on display at the Musée de la Marine, Paris.
Photo by Rémi Kaupp. I wish I had known about this museum
when I was in Paris this summer. Something tells me the rest of 
the family would have vetoed a visit this museum!

In my last post, I decided to build some ships to host a game with colleagues here at work. I said that I going to follow a scale as opposed to the ships I currently make. The question is which scale? And no, it will not be the scale that the above models in the photograph is. 

The chart below compares the various scales among several ships of the time. I apologize for the fuzziness of the chart but I could not seem to upload the text directly from Excel.

Originally, I was going to build them at 1/1000. There is a fellow on The Gridded Naval Wargame Facebook group that builds these beautiful ironclads at that scale. But lately I keep going back and forth  between 1/900 and the 1/700. I want the ships to have a little more visual appeal. I have found that when hosting games in the past with non-wargamers, larger-sized miniatures helps to hold their interest longer. 

Once I figure out the scale, I will then need to decide both ship types and numbers. I want to get going on this project soon, so that it is ready by early spring of next year at the latest.