As a new SC owner, I must agree that Matt makes mast stepping look incredibly easy. My wife and I watched the video, then set out to perform the task for the first time on our driveway. Previous owner was unable to walk us through this, so we were on our own, with a little help from the video. As we began the process, we had a question of how tight the trap wires should be when the mast is in the down position. The video states they tighten as the mast is raised, so we did not want to overstress anything. At the initial raising, it started moving around quite a bit, along with rolling over a little. I climbed up on the tramp and stabilized it a bit while the wife continued to reign in the main sheet. It went fairly easily as a 2 person job, but we were skeptical about one person doing it. After the mast was up, we rechecked the trap wires and found there was still some slack in the trap wires/front cross bar lines. We tightened them up fairly snug in the up postion. Later when the time came to drop (or should I say lower) the mast, it was very stable. Next time stepping the mast was also the first time sailing the boat. With the knowlege of how tight the trap wires should be, we decided to try the Miller method and single handedly raise the mast. Initially, we raised it only a few inches. It was way more stable than the first time, so I took the end of the main sheet and started walking. Up went the mast, just like in the video. Very stable. Did not seem like a risk at all.
To me, an experience H16 and H17 sailor used to muscling the mast into postion, this system works very well and is very easy, given the size/weight of this mast.
The key is proper tension on the trap wires to stabilize the mast.
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thanks again. my dad's been watching it all weekend