Question about using a gin pole

I ran into an issue lowering my mast yesterday that I've never seen before. The solution is probably something really stupid, but at the time I couldn't see it, and I'm still stumped.

I was attempting to lower my mast using a gin pole and my mast would always rotate itself clock wise, rather forcefully...even before I'd actually started lowering. Meaning, I'd just attached the forestay to the winch and had the gin pole support lines tied off to my internal cross bar lines (H21SC) and trapeze. It was a textbook operation. The other odd thing was I could not rotate the mast fully counterclockwise. It sounded like I was hitting a stop, but I looked at the mast ball and found nothing.

The two lines that run off of the Gin pole to the Trap wires are also of equal length. At one point I even disconnected the trap wires and it made no difference. The boat is also level from port to starboard, but has a slight pitch stern to bow.

What I didn't do and wish I'd done was taken the gin pole off and tested the mast w/o it. However, Hurricane Fay might be paying me a visit, and I had a boat load of other jobs to do and no time for troubleshooting.

In order to lower my mast I was forced to tie it off with it centered. After that it lowered fairly smoothly.

So the question is, WHAT caused my mast to rotate, and Why could I not fully counter rotate it? Anyone experienced anything like this before? I have in the past had the mast want to rotate when I was in the process of lowering, but never before I even got started.

Thanks for the help.

Thanks

TC

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TC