The issue you all have overlooked is cost. Sure plans cost money. Building materials cost much much more though. If a 1,500$ set of plans is purchased and followed through materials waste is at a minimum because a designer tested his/her design before selling it. If you get a plan for free somewhere (be it stolen form the designer,a magazine, or and old outdated plan online) you get what you pay for. When you need to contact the designer for advice or perhaps an unclear design element, you can't and are forced into "trying to figure it out". That can cost thousands in lost hour and materials waste doing it wrong and then fixing it. One set of plans = one finished boat. Want more boats built, buy another plan. Or learn from your first build and design the rest yourself. Good luck with that though. A good plan purchased is a savings of money, not an expense. Besides that if designers didn't make money designing boats, how could we expect them to continue to survive to keep designing them? You spend a lot of time in construction how would you like it if someone waited till you were finished and then stole your boat when it was done? Same thing my friends..same thing. Hard work is hard work. Pay for it.