Mast Raising Gin Pole System

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johnnyonspot
First Officer
Posts: 441
Joined: Thu Oct 06, 2005 9:19 pm
Location: Elk River, MN.

Mast Raising Gin Pole System

Post by johnnyonspot »

Hi all, been a very long time since I have been on this forum. Probably about ten years. I see the Backroom no longer exists, so I should be able to stay out of trouble. :D :D :D I see many of my friends from back then are apparently still here. You know who you are. To Frank C, wherever you are I hope you are still sailing, possibly in Heaven.

In any event, I have owned several sailboats over the last 15 years since I began sailing, including an M-16 Scow, MacGregor 25 (hence my membership on this site), Flying Scot, Sirius 17, O'Day 20, Com-Pac 16, and recently purchased a 1994 Precision 23, which I got such a great deal on I literally had to do it. I have typically slipped my bigger boats on Mille Lacs Lake in central Minnesota, which is what I plan to do with the P-23. I typically single-hand and like to be able to do it all by myself, including raising and lowering the mast, which on the P-23 is impossible without a mast raising system. After much research and finding no resources online, let alone made to order systems, but knowing the general concepts, I decided to build my own. This build can be done for any trailerable sailboat and is much cheaper than buying a mast raising system from a retail vendor. Materials used include a ten foot section of conduit cut down to 8 feet, two eye bolts, two U-bolts, a section of 2x6 board notched out on one end to fit wround the mast step, and a couple bolts and nuts to connect the base of the board where its notched out to the mast step, through which I drilled two holes for connecting the gin pole to the step. To keep the mast from swaying while being raised I connected chains between the stanchions on each side of the boat that straddle the tabernacle, then used line tied to one chain perpendicular to the step, ran up to the mast about six feet where I wrapped it around and then ran it over to the other chain and tied it off at, again, a point perpendicular to the step pivot point. This is sort of a jury-rigged baby stay system, which is removed once the mast is raised. I connected the jib halyard to the aft eye-bolt at the end of the gin pole, making sure the angle between the pole and mast was slightly less than 90 degrees. I also used my main sheet system for mechanical advantage, connected between the bow and forward eye bolt on the gin pole. I tested the system out today and it works pretty well, though I think I am going to flip the system over from now on so the pole ends up on the top of the 2x6 board once the mast is raised, as today I damaged my connector plug for my mast light and need to fix it now. You can view pics over on sailnet as I forgot how to post them on this site. https://www.sailnet.com/forums/gear-mai ... ystem.html
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