We tried rope last time...and we found it still let the foot slip off the ball enough to cause "problems". The issue seems to be the fact that the ball & foot don't really fit together until you reach a certain angle. So anything you tie in place while the mast is fully down will not be in tight enough as the angle changes. The "ball" stub on the beam is only about the width of an index finger and about 1 inch high. One thing that helps is to have a helper apply pulling force from the trapeze line while holding the foot down in place. I'm thinking a gin pole arrangement that can keep some forward pull of the base on to the stub might work as a solo-up system.