What kind of yacht??

What is your budget (to buy and also to operate), are you on a time schedule? What ammenities do you need? What speed do you need?

My 40-foot, aft-cabin boat is too small for your needs (no washer/dryer, insufficient range and water), and is over your $100k budget, and this is an older boat (2004). This is not quite camping, more cottaging. It would be great for intercoastal and inland, not really a "blue-water" ocean boat, but a lot of people use them that way. It is certainly enough room for two couples. You could make it work with some compromises, but there are better boats of this size and style for what you want to do.

My boat has a planing hull, so it can go pretty fast when I want to spend the petro-dollars, and I do use it that way. When not in a hurry it gets very good economy, as Pascal mentioned. The real tradeoff is in how comfortable it is in bigger waves. A displacement hull boat that can't go fast is going to roll around less in waves at slow speed. I simply get up on a slow plane and mush through big waves, spending a lot less time in them, and a lot of money. Or I use speed to avoid bad weather all together, find a port and wait it out. By big waves I mean big and steep storm-pushed waves, our freshwater waves tend to be steeper. Most any boat will do well in big waves that are long and slow.

40+ gallons an hour is my cost to cruise on a plane, around 27mph/24kts, that would be cheaper with diesels instead of gas engines. At leisurely speeds around 8mph/7kts, I get about 2mpg, about what a lot of boats this size get, regardless of hull type. On a plane I get around 3/4 to 1/2 mpg. I spent $3600 to go 500 miles in three days last summer, mostly in pretty big waves, so on a slow plane using lots of fuel. If I had done that 500 miles in six days, it would have cost less than $1000 in fuel.

There are boats this size that have hulls shaped for better wave handling, they have a bit less interior space as the tradeoff. Mainship makes an aft-cabin this size that would be an example. Some have washer/dryers in this size range, you will find them if you look.

I hope your books sell phenomenally well so you can buy and cruise the boat you want. Enjoy reading about and looking at boats. My wife and I spent a lot of time looking at boats at beaches and marinas. When we asked people about their boats they usually wanted us to come aboard for a tour, it was great fun. We both grew up with boats, but didn't know what we wanted.

At top speed, about 35mph/31knots, my boat is supposed to burn almost 64 gallons per hour. I haven't spent more than a few minutes at max throttle, we mostly cruise slower and burn 4 gpm. Most big boats will gulp down a lot of fuel at max throttle, even the slow ones. Most will sip it at slow speeds. A displacement hull boat will not be able to go any faster than 8-10 kts.

I prefer being able to go fast if I need to, for weather or whatever, but prefer to go slow. Since I'm still working for a living, I wouldn't be able to go very far if I only went slow. Luckily I love where I am, and my kids really wouldn't enjoy a beach on the other side of the world any more than the beach I can idle to in twenty minutes.

My youngest and last at home is also a high-school freshman. He likes having his own forward stateroom with a door for privacy, seems to enjoy the boat. We haven't taken any trips with friends for him, but there would be plenty of places to sleep. When he has friends for day cruises, they do disappear into his stateroom and sit with their phones on occasion. I'd prefer they were out in the sun and with us all the time, but it is nice to have our peace as well, even when we go below.

Our son has enjoyed time with us on the boat, and has balked at spending time with us on the boat. Overall he seems to enjoy it, and his friends and their parents definitely enjoy it.

If you want to learn about cruising, there is a forum for that, with sub-forums for more specifics. This is mostly a sailboat forum, but lots of great info for cruising: http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/

Whoa.

Let's slam the breaks on a bit.

Here's what I've gotten from the information you've shared and if any of it is wrong, I apologize and please correct me.

1. Zero boating experience. Means you have no idea if you'll enjoy it and to what degree you'll enjoy it, plus no knowledge or experience.
2. Thinking about a joint significant investment in a depreciating asset with a boyfriend.
3. Aspiring but unpublished writer
4. Thinking under $100k, but no indication that you've taken into consideration maintenance of an older boat or cost of slip and fuel and taxes, if any
5. Future possible liveaboard but not time soon while boyfriend still working.
6. Currently tied to Illinois River. Future the world but that's upon retirement which sounds like it could be as much as 20 years away. Also the boat for future purposes might be far different than current.
7. Currently tied to a week or two usage maximum at a time

Recommendations

1. You need to learn some things about boating that can't be learned on a forum. Look at the boats that most own in your area. Take some Power Squadron courses or something to give you a bit of insight.
2. Go out with someone knowledgeable or rent a boat locally and find someone to run it and show you some basics. Even charter on a vacation somewhere.
3. Think about the boat then you could use for the next several years, not the one for the gulf or the loop or the VI or the Bahamas. We lived on a lake in NC. The right boat there for us was a 30' bowrider. Any of the boats we own now would have been the wrong boat there and the wrong boat as we had jobs and were limited to afternoons, weekends, and a week or two occasionally.
4. Look at all the costs of ownership, including slip fees, insurance, taxes, fuel, repairs and maintenance. Things like periodic bottom paint, bottom cleaning, engine repair.
5. Look at what kinds of boats others have for your area. Not knowing exactly where you are, I'm guessing, but I suspect a lot of pontoon boats, small fishing boats, small runabouts. Not boats designed to do the loop because most people don't have time to do the loop. If you are maintaining a house, you don't need a liveaboard boat. Something for a weekend perhaps, like a small SeaRay Sundancer or a Carver. Maybe a Bayliner pilothouse or a Mainship. But they are probably bigger than you need now.
6. You can get into a more appropriate boat for today for less money and learn. Also, if things don't work out you'll lose less. Regardless of what you do today, you'll want something different in the years to come and by then you may know what. Don't financially strap yourself today to a boat that you don't need and is a lousy fit as a starter boat and for your current use. Also, your financial situation should improve over the years allowing you to afford a boat in the future that matches your future needs.

So, I'd do more preparation, then if still interested, I'd buy my first boat, not my forever boat. I'd probably spend less than $50k on it, and I'd find out how boating is for me in reality not how the dream of it or the fantasy of it is. For us, it's nirvana, it's life as it should be, we're fanatics. I hope it's like that for you and your boyfriend. However, you don't know that yet. You have no way to and for many it isn't that. Life interferes with boating. Even many who dream of the loop find that 20 years in the future or the time never comes. Enjoy the present. Before retirement, a million things might happen in your lives. You don't know what the next three years will bring, much less 20 years from now. I want to see you enjoying boating but easing in is the way, finding the right boat for now, not spending the maximum you could, making it a special world, special place for your family, not an albatross.

I figured this might be a ways in the future, but like adding illustrations to your text, it adds to the dream. You aren't buying a boat right now, but you need motivation right now, so you can move toward it. Keep illustrating!

Grand Banks. Those yachts cover every size and price range you are looking at.

I admired them as a teenager and still love them as a 50 year old man.

http://www.yachtworld.co.uk/core/li...cyid=100&luom=126&No=0&Ns=PBoat_length_feet|1