Converting a 33.5 from sailing yacht to trawler...

[Rich Stidger]

I have been told that the motion of sailboats without masts is horribly rapid, anyone know more?

Absolutely. A few years ago I had my mast off getting re-fitted with a new furling boom. Before the mast and boom were ready to re-install, the yard needed to move me to get other vessels out and launched. My choice was to pay $500 for them to just move me or get launched and stepped later. I chose to launch.
Well the boat motion was absolutely awful. I never would have guessed. Apparently without a mast the weight of the keel makes the boat extremely stiff and any wave action results in a swift and opposite motion.
IMHO a sailboat without a mast would make a terrible boat.

 

[John T1594]

I have to agree with Johnb about the boat motion with the mast removed. Yes it sounds counter intuitive but it is true by my experience. A few years back we had to take down the mast of our 1980 H30 to repair our furler. It was close to the end of the season so we used the boat a few times before hauling it for the winter. We would motor out to our local popular anchor spot for lunch and swimming. The boat rolled a lot from side to side, way much more than what we had ever experienced with the mast up. It was so uncomfortable that we had to haul anchor and head back to our slip. We tried motoring a time or two after that with the same result. Just sayin'

 

[Rick486]

I have been told that the motion of sailboats without masts is horribly rapid, anyone know more?

Reduced rotational moment of inertia about the bow-stern axis will increase the rotational natural frequency and could make certain beam seas very unpleasant.