I'd love a boat - but as my friend says "Nothing but a tub into which I throw all my time and money".
A large boat can be expensive and have many continuing costs. I felt like I was always buying something for it. One year I had it hauled out for major work that came to about $24,000. That meant a semi had to trailer it and get permission for an oversized wide load, etc... etc.. Keep in mind I'm a pretty handy guy and I did a lot of work on it myself.
A tournament ski boat is much easier to deal with. They are simple direct drive boats with V8 truck engines. My last ski boat had a heater, hot water shower, oversized bimini, and a Ford 351 with GT-40 heads. It also had a Perfect Pass speed control with magnetic timing. It would adjust the throttle 200 times per second to maintain speed in the slalom course. With gear reduction that boat had over 400ft/lbs of torque at the prop and the engine is 310Hp. It could pop a skier right up and was easy to drive record tolerance passes on the slalom course. My first ski boat also had a 351, but it was older, lighter, didn't hold as well in the course and had glass packs which made it very loud at idle. I owned two ski boats. The 1st I purchased used and the 2nd I had custom built for me.
I trailered my ski boat because I waterskied on 3 different lakes. I was in a 3 ski boat rotation with a couple friends who were also slalom course addicts like I was. So I skied 3 times as many hours as I put on my boat.
In those days I felt compelled to get out every weekend I could during the summer. The first year we had two boats we stayed out on the lake for 12 weekends and each year after that the number of weeks dropped. It also meant that as soon as we got home from work on Friday, We had to pack up the pickup and ski boat with clothes, towels, and food. Drive to the marina, launch the ski boat, drive to the big boat, unload the ski boat, launch the big boat, then hook the ski boat behind it and drive across the lake to our cove. By the time we were tied up in the cove it was dark and we are tired and crashed hard. We had all day Saturday to enjoy it. Then Sunday after lunch we had to tear everything down, drive the big boat back to the dock, unload all the towels clothes and trash, trailer the boat and drive it home, park the boat and unhook it.
In the Ewwww category...
And every once in a while it was time to pump out the black water tanks. My boat had 80 gallons of black water capacity, 80 gallons of fresh, grey water went into the lake and the macerator toilet used lake water to flush with before emptying into the black water tanks.
The grossest thing was getting there and finding out that the refrigerator had quit. It was well stocked with meat and it had been in the 90's all week.
In case you are curious I owned a used Stardust Cruiser.
Our Boats – Trifecta Houseboats
But it's not a cruiser, it's a houseboat.