Need opinions moving from flybridge to a flush deck

I've never gone that route, just the other way round - i.e. from a number of open, single deck boats, to a 53' flybridge first, and lastly a 56', again f/b.

BUT, I must say that when I made this last move a few years ago, envisaging that she was possibly going to be our "final" boat, I did think that single story could have been a logical choice, in more ways than one.
Trouble is, since we live onboard for quite a lot of our time (even more than at home, in fact), we want/need decent spaces.
For us, a mid-50' f/b is just about the sweet spot in this respect, though obviously that's somewhat subjective.
What is not subjective is that for having comparable spaces on a non-f/b boat, you must go larger.
And by that I don't mean 2 or 3 feet larger, more like 10, give or take.
In fact, I can think of a couple of 65' enclosed hardtop boats with no f/b that I've seen which I wouldn't mind swapping with our boat, for living aboard.
OTOH, we didn't want to go that larger, because we thought that the cons of handling and maintaining a bigger hole in the water outweighed the pros.

Then again, that's subjective. Compromise is always the name of the game, with boats.
As Bertolt Brecht would put it, yours is a question for which you should expect no answer other than your own!

Only ever been on buddies 28 Tiara. Nice little boat but when I said I would want diesels his reply was the diesel ones were very noisy at the helm. Heard the Sovereign is a very wet boat.

I'd guess you have a ladder to your flying bridge, not stairs? We had one like that once, although we had a lower helm too. Hardly ever used the lower helm because forward visibility from there wasn't great. (Sucked, especially near fields of crab pots.) OTOH, we couldn't get our big dogs (120-lb Pyr, 80-lb Golden) up to the bridge, and they were sometimes seriously unhappy with the separation in uncomfortable sea states.

Thought we'd try a "rancher" (express sportfish) for our next boat. Didn't like it. Forward visibility still sucked, we had way more engine noise (being closer to 'em), and life aboard was basically living in a cave. Probably not as bad as something like a larger Tiara or a Sabre with enclosed saloon, but the "saloon" we had was semi-tiny and with only a soft enclosure, aft. Didn't like it, anyway.

Our solution was back to a flybridge boat, with STAIRS (not a ladder) to the bridge. And then eventually, to our current boat, which also has STAIRS, but also has heat/AC on the (larger) bridge. On both of these, we've tended to spend boatloads of time on the bridge, almost more so than in the saloon. While shopping for this one, we also looked (theoretically) at many models that also had a lower helm... but never found the right combination of everything else plus lower station...

Wifey likes one-story Sabres, though, presumably for when we can't do stairs anymore. (Maybe not that far in the future...)

I've read about heat/AC additions to flybridge boats that started without. I've also read some discussions about replacing existing ladders in older flybridge boats with stairs, sometimes circular... so there perhaps could be a way to keep what you have, with some improvements.

-Chris

I've owned a couple Tiaras and ran a bunch of others. All were mid level builder or better quality and reasonably serviceable/well thought out. In my experience, the 2007 and newer 39, 43 and 45 Sovrans lived well, but were not great sea boats due to their more bulbous hulls (trying to maximize interior volume). The 44/47 Sovran were definitely better sea boats than the older ones, however you give up a little interior volume due to the engines being more forward than in the newer IPS only Sovrans. With climate control and a good drop curtain setup (from the back of the hardtop connecting just below the aft facing seats), the helm/topsides area worked well as our salon most of the time.

Maybe a custom Pipe Welders elevator is your solution. Also once saw a 60 Donzi Spt. Fish with an elevator to the bridge. Many times "just" dollars and the will to spend it.