i am a high school student that would die to have the plans to make this boat. its for a project and i need the plans

Nice email address you've got. Plans are available from any designer, for a royalty fee.

I think building a melin may be a little enthusiastic!

what sort of price range would you expect to pay for plans. Do you think that it is economically viable to make your own, or would it end up costing more that if you got someone experienced to make it properly?

Try this

You could probably save quite a lot in £ terms on a wooden hull if you built it yourself, how much relative to buying a FRP hull and fitting it out yourself probably rather less.

Don't forget that fittings, rig, sails, trolley, trailer, covers and foils (Unless you make those too) will all cost the same as an professionally built boat so the overall saving is probably not going to be as great as you would think.

Then add the hours to do it and pay yourself £20 per hour!!

1) It has to be a labor of love! £20/hr more like 20p/hr! I love to sail, I loved to build the boat.
2) My fully fitted MR with raking CarbonFiber rig cost about £4000. The finished hull was probably about £7-800.
3) When I fitted out my mast-make offered me 50% discount off of list for a single order of Ronstan fittings. I had to buy a few more I forgot, or underspec'd, at list give or take.
4) I don't think my parts were any cheaper here in USA than you guys pay and I also payed shipping from blighty on my sails and rudder plus many other parts.

But it was a lot of fun building it and lots of fun sailing it.

Harken fittings in the US are half the UK price!

most things in the us are dollars for pounds or less