[quote=malcs]A few comments on the electric winch system. First of all, that is pretty cool! I've built a few gin poles, and borrowed my ideas from others over the past 25 years. My current one has been working for 20 years without incident.
The triangle you need to keep the mast from falling sideways needs to be in-plane with the mast. The only way to do that is to take a pair of trap wires and attach them to the front beam. That way they will have the same tension at all angles as you raise the mast. You can easily do this by putting a strap eye at the ends of the beam, and just make something that hooks to a pulled-forward trapeze wires. Adding a second triangle made of Amsteel line that goes to the ginpole, and is in-plane with the gin pole is also a good idea. This all keeps the mast aligned, and the gin pole aligned.
Using an electric winch vs manual, and where to mount it: Stuff goes wrong almost every time the mast gets raised. Wires fall under the rudders, trap handles get stuck in the tramp lacing, wires ends get cocked and need to be straightened out. Using a manual winch gives you direct feedback, so you can react before something gets ripped off, a shroud gets kinked, etc. My preference is a manual bow winch. The winch can be mounted on the tongue around the location of the mast support. When lowering the mast nursing the first few cranks gives you another chance to observe what is going on.
If you don't have a captive mast ball you need to tie a short line from the bottom of the mast to the mast base. It isn't a bad idea to do this anyway, since the captive mechanisms often rely on the mast ball being glued on, or a small pin on a hobie, that can fail.
Hope this is helpful.<!-- editby --><em>Edited by malcs on Sep 05, 2019 - 10:01 AM.</em><!-- end editby --> [/quote]
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