A production boat like a Fountain, Formula or Donzi with stock power are a good start IMHO. There's a lot of them out there and easy to sell if you're not happy. The price is reasonable and they run well with small power.

Once you have some time under your belt you'll probably want to move up or out into more of a custom built boat.

I'd take a hard look at this boat if you can get it under 90k. It does a lot of things well.

If you are going to spend any time onboard, you want a good head with a door, unless you don't want to ever take women along. Some heads are so small they are really just storage compartments. If you are going to do any horizontal dancing, a head under the V-berth is a real bad idea. I suggest a vacuflush head as an absolute requirement.

Staggered engines. Side-by-side is a bad idea if you intend to buy used.

Also, if you are buying used, carbs are way better than EFI. The opposite is true if you buy new and turn the boat within a few years. EFI leads to impossible to trace weird bugs. Carbs are very easy to diagnose, cheap to fix and maintain, and work GREAT on boats.

Stepped hulls are quite a bit more fuel efficient (about 20%) and faster. But poorly designed stepped hulls work poorly: they may lack directional stability, they may porpoise. Fountains work well because they constantly improve the hulls. Most builders change their molds very, very rarely, and the chance of getting steps right the first time is quite low: hence the multitude of horror stories of ill mannered step hulled boats.

Make sure the structure will hold up. Few boats are built as well as Cigs or Fountains. Take the boat apart as much as you can, and look at deck joints, bulkheads, stringers, how things are mounted, everything.

Finally, always consider a longer boat. Its really no harder to tow a long boat than a short one. A 42 may be no more complicated, and therefore no more expensive to own, than a twin 28. A longer boat is much smoother, carries load better, provides more room to work on the engines and systems, and more room to play.

Good advice.

I dunno, it may cost the same to own it but it costs more to operate a 42' over a 28' in my opinion. I love my Apache and would never go backwards but I miss my Scarab Panther. ;)

How about a Donzi 33zx or a 35zr. The zr would have to have 496s do get it close to your budget.

Why is that?

If anything goes wrong with the engines it is a pain in the ass to fix in a non-staggered boat. Sometimes you even have to take out one of the engines so you can fix the other one.

Just buy the 37AT and be done.....You will be satisfied for a number of yrs to come. Also, it will probably be worth more in a few years.....if you decide to make a change. The boat will do almost everything a first time "go-fast" owner could want. You may want more speed, but the ride & comfort will make up for it....rarely will you need to go 80+. However, the ability to go 55-70mph in 3-4's and enjoy it is paramount!