VERY Close Call!

[tgrass462]

Last fall my 'gin pole' used to raise the mast on my Hunter 260 bent. I immediately ordered a new pole from Hunter Marine - stored it safely in my garage over winter and (attempted to) use it to raise my mast yesterday.

I got the mast about 12 to 18 inches off of the mast cradle (my wife had been assisting in lifting the mast from the cradle to get it started) when suddenly the mast fell! Thank God - it missed my wife's head and it fell back into the cradle with no damage to the mast, cradle or mast step. After making sure no one was injured - my first thought was that the main sheet had failed - or - that the jib haylard had parted. No - the newly purchased, Hunter supplied gin pole had one of the cables' crimped fittings fail!

I had never expected this ... in the Hunter Mast raising system - there are multiple points of failure - main sheet; jib halyard; etc. but I never thought the gin pole would fail.

I have to be able to raise my mast ... I'm planning on restringing cable in the end of this pole and Triple Crimping the cable myself.

Has this ever happened to anyone else?

Tom Grass
Grasshopper III

 

[soling42]

Mine has been up/down over 50 times and there is no sign of fatigue but you can bet I'll be checking it before I use it again. Doesn't it come with two crimps on each eye? Looking at this pic of mine it almost looks like there are two on each side. I already run both the spinnaker halyard and the unused jib lead as double safety but a crimp failure would be the worst.

Maybe a short "leash" between the eyes would be a simple backup.

Glad there was no one hurt.
mike & Kelli

 

[tgrass462]

Just a thought

I've been thinking - rather than a cable with swedged ends - what about a welded steel loop on the end of the gin pole. Seems like it would be a lot stronger.

Tom Grass
Grasshopper III

 

[Dennis Kitchen]

Re: Just a thought

a P.O. dropped my mast as well and the gin pole was significantly bent. I don't know what happened.. just know when i bought her the pole was bent and the hole in the mast base was cracked where the pole pressed against it. You are right about multiple failure points possible. The system works really well if all equipment is OK. Not necessary to have someone help start it up. You have demonstrated the reason to not have anyone else on deck aft.

 

[Rick Webb]

One Would Think They do a Strength Test on Those

Maybe they will now. I used to run a piece of line through the eyes on the line because ther seemed alot of ways for it to go wrong that was not one I though would. Stopped doing it after a whole bunch of noneventful mast raising and lowering evolutions. May start again.

 

[George H260]

Tom:

Had the same problem, but noticed the cable had frayed through before I had a crisis. I replaced it with heavy duty cable from the hardware store and used cable clamps. Make sure you understand how the clamps are to be put on.

More on the pole at: http://h260.com/ginpole/ginpole.html