Your comfort level will increase with a Fisher, as will your diesel consumption. You may have to consider burning bio-diesel to assuage the twinges of your enviro conscience. Burning a bio-diesel smells like chips frying, I am told…
Was that a Fisher 25? Though the Fisher 34 is the next-size larger listed, I’ve seen pics of the Fisher 27 and the Fisher 30. Both have a little more elbow-room in the pilot-house, without the expensive-jump to 34-feet. I think the Fisher 30 still can be tiller-steered, not so-sure about the 34-footer.
A pilothouse and raised bulwarks will be vastly more-secure in poor conditions. In just-watching your sail video back from Shetland crossing the Pentland Firth, you definitely appeared overstressed and overmatched. In a Fisher 25 or Fisher 30, it should have been merely uncomfortably lumpy; warm, dry, trundling along on autopilot under reefed jib and mizzen.