We bought a jet ski to serve as our houseboat’s dingy last year. After ¾ of the boating season, we’ve found it worked better in theory than in reality. Older parents / folks don’t want to ride the jet ski and we can’t ride it at night. So, we’ve been looking into a good used runabout to fill this void now. What type of boat do you guys use to fulfill this service?

My concerns about getting a runabout are:
1) Must have wife drive the runabout out to the houseboat once I’m anchored, so she won’t be able to sail out to anchor with me.
2) Won’t have wife to throw the bow lines at the dock when we’re returning. Could teach my 5 year old to do it, but that’s a whole different problem.
3) I’m already paying ~$6K a year for slip fees on the houseboat, so I will store the runabout at the house in my garage. I’ll have to haul it to / from the lake each weekend, which isn't really that bad b/c our boat is only 15 minutes from the house.
a. I’m asking Sailabration about mounting a 16’ runabout on the back of my houseboat, so I could potentially leave it mounted on the back all boating season. Not sure what that would cost, if it could even be done.
4) Between cars, boats, and lawn equipment, I will have 11 different engines I must maintain!

I was thinking of buying a rigid inflatable, but those can’t really be used comfortably as a ski / tubing boat.