I was pretty young, but I remember when my dad bought a 17 and 1/2 foot Glaspar Seafarer Sedan (small cuddy cabin boat) with a 100 horse Mercury outboard (straight 6 cyl)....... something like the one pictured below, in the early 1960s. He was proud that it "was the most powerful outboard in the world".
He and his buddies with similar sized boats used to go out to Catalina a lot and my brother and I would sleep in the little V-berths in the cabin while the men stayed at hotels and partied all night.