Thanks a bunch! I am working on my gin pole now. The local metal shop was out of 2 1/2" aluminum tube so I ended up with 3" square aluminum tube that is 1/8" thick. Did you just use the boom vang that is normally attached to your boom or did you need a longer length of rope?
The J on your boat is 10.5' so a 10' gin pole will give you clearance around the stem fitting. A little trig shows the hypotenuse of the system to be a little over 14' so with a 4:1 purchase 60' would work but the extra 10' Andrew suggest would be better. One word of caution on a gin pole, make sure the gin pole mount keeps the pole in column with the mast or add some stays to the gin pole to keep the pole in column. If it gets out of column with the strain it will seek the lowest load which will drop the mast as the gin pole skews off to the side. I've seen this happen twice. Bent mast and vehicles. Here is how I single hand my mast.
That's quite a piece of engineering there
. I watched the video several times and may not have seen all the little "bits" even then. I especially like (what appears to be) the short part of the two piece gin pole being used as support for the furler when the mast is down, and the way the forestay is raised up the pole to prepare for raising the mast. very impressive system! thanks for sharing.
I trailer 3 to 5 thousand miles a year and don't care for the mast to be resting on roller all of the time. The adjustable roller also comes into play when I drop the mast since a little wind or slope makes it impossible to hit a 3" roller because the mast, at that point, can move 6" side to side. I can step back to the stern hold the mast with one hand in position and raise the roller to accept the mast. If you have extra people and rope another method, we use around here, to keep the mast straight on the way down. Hoist 2 lines via the main halyard to the top of the mast that are long enough for people to hold and stand off to the side of the boat (out of the danger zone). Position a third person behind the boat, again out of the danger zone, to call instructions to the line handlers (Bob tighten, John loosen, etc) to keep the mast straight. We raised 2 over 30' mast Monday this way, using a gin pole, one with the mainsheet and the other with trailer mounted winch and turning block.