you could buy yourself a dedicated ski boat, like 17ft with a 115 outboard, Im thinkin' used and real cheap AND a real boat.
My buddy bought himself an old Charger DL with a 175 Rude for like CHEAP and it looked awful but after looking at it all it needed was the front seats replaced(they made the whole boat look like chit!), a real good cleanup of the rest of the interior, hide the wires hanging out from under the dash.....(EZ), a "new" stereo (an old Pioneer he had hanging around in his garage), new gauges (Faria.....cheap), a new cover from Wal Mart (nothing wrong with it) and a weekend buffing out the gel with Meguires 3 step.......and a couple of yrs later he redid the trailer.......that boat looks AMAZING to this day

I was originally looking into a 1980 Glastron-Carlson CV27, everything on it is original, including the engines. So I know I can it get relatively cheap, but I'm cash poor, so I would have to loan out the project. That gets expensive when the interest rate is double that of a 15yr boat loan. But the boat is super cool and would look amazing if I could do what I wanted. Then I just scrapped the entire idea and decided on the Sonic. There are two currently in my price range. One with twin 454's the other a single 502. Then the issue of what can the boat do for the family came up hence the open bow "family" boat arose.

If I could pull an inner tube of something with the Sonic I would be ok, but I don't know if that's possible.

I've owned two open bow boats. My last one was a 230 Mastercraft Maristar. If your into water sports, recreational skiing and tubing, it's a great boat and they're a blast. The only issue with these types of boats, is when the water gets a little rough the ride gets hard.

Monterey has a bow rider that might fill the bill for you AND your wife. Check it out.

See "Starting Over" thread in The Bilge!

This is the answer. When it comes to the purchase of a boat I make the decision, no one else. Would you let your wife tell you what gun to purchase??

What about that 42' Fountain bow rider

i guess im lucky. when i was looking for my boat i was down to 2 different ones. i asked my girlfriend which one she thought was better and she asked which one was faster. then we had the talk of kids. she told me im going to need to uy a bigger boat but it would have to it 80. i love her...

get what you want.....she will get over it, and probably realize you were right all along.