Liftboat pleasure craft?

TANSL, yes, I've considered flotels. An adapted flotel may be way to go. They have several advantages:

* already built, can be acquired used
* engineering work already done
* engineered for harsh conditions
* can house many people

However, they also have following disadvantages for my purposes:

* optimized for density of housing, rather than space or comfort
* optimized for the oil industry, where downtime can cost millions of dollars a day, so over-engineered (and thus more costly)
* optimized for short stays, rather than long term
* large, and therefore costly
* large draft
* not self-propelled
* made of steel (rust and maintenance issues)


FAST FRED, it hadn't occurred to me to make a spud barge into a hover craft.

Looks like hovercrafts of appropriate size have already been built.