Rigging a Ginpole on Mast

[Alan Wiser, '98 240 O'Day]

I am planning on converting to a ginpole to raise and lower the mast. I have been thinking of various way's to do this and would like some imput. I am leaning towards using 3/4 inch black steel pipe ( gas line piping) and a 3/4 inch flange along with 2 forged eyelets to attach the uphaul and block and tackle from the bow. If I use the flange, I am thinking of using ablock of wood to place on the mast. Here is where I amstuck; If I use a block of wood I could use 8 or 10 inch steel worm couplings or some sort of nylon rachetstyle to secure the wood base of the ginpole to my mast.Any suggestions? What type of material do you use as aginpole? Am I on the right track? Thanks for any helpyou can give me. PS: I do not want to drill holes in my mast.

 

[NEIL WALTERS]

Rigging a Gin Pole

I hope I can keep it simple. I had a sheet metal shop make a gin pole for me out of a 1 1/2 inch piece of of aluminum tubing I had them weld a U shaped piece of flat aluminum at one end to fit around the foot of the mast. I used padding to keep from scratching the mast as I lashed it to the mast at the step fitting. At the other end I drilled two small holes verticle to hold two eyelet bolts that I attached one to the jib halyard, the other one I attached a three part pully with enough rope to attach to the stem head then back to a winch in the cockpit making sure there was enough to lay down the mast. To keep the mast from swinging as it comes down I rigged a collar around the mast and ran it up to almost to the spreader with the main halyard. To this collar( a short piece of plactic coated cable with the ends clamped with two small U shaped clamps for security) I tied two pieces of rope on each side of the mast. The other ends I attached to the base of stauncheons in front of the mast area. I found if I didn't run the collar all the way to the spreaders the rig had a little wiggle room so the mast could come all the way down. If your stanchen is not in line with the mast, you can rig up a system from two stanchens so the A frame lines are close to the line out board of the mast. It is important to have the mast and these A frame lines on the same plane as the mast goes down. It may sound Rube Goldberg but it worked for me on my 23 and now on my 26 O'Day. I found a ridged A frame to be very unwieldly. Any ? I am at, neilnme @ earthlink.net