Usually mast raising goes ok, but Bob Stroup had the unfortunate accident
of having the HMS 18 mast swerve to one side while raising. He arrested
the mast's sideways movement by brute strength. Soon found out that he had
seriously damaged his shoulders.
He made a simple variant of the whisker pole A-frame stabilizer to pivot
from the bases of the two forward life line stanchions and had no further
problems. Only takes a couple minutes to install the thing -- and having
one dreadful out of control mast collapse in my own past I intend to use it
every time. Since it does not clamp onto the mast there is no danger of
deforming the mast.
On another note, for those like myself that like to overengineer duct tape,
the best in the universe is Polyken cloth tape made by the Kendall Co.,
Boston, MA. (I hope they are still in business)
rlreno@worldnet.att.net