I'm glad I could be of service!

Seriously, the TheMightyHobie18 is a great boat. You might want to look around at some other boats to see how they handle the mast hook thing. Even something as simple as tying a different kind of knot at the ring could make a huge difference. While I too wrestled with my 'sky hook' on the one I had, I know plenty of folks that don't give mast hooking and unhooking on their H18s a second thought.

Oh...and another thing to look for. The older TheMightyHobie18's had a latch on the top of the hook that was supposed to make unhooking easier (probably did when it was new and moved freely). It is a piece of metal that's held in place to the hook with a rivet (or screw). It's designed to get in the center of the ring and cover the hook if you raise the ring above it. This is 'supposed' to cover the hook and let the ring slide right down over it without rotating the mast. However, everyone I know took their 'latch' off because it made hooking the main almost impossible at times. If you've got one of these, you might try to remove it and see what happens.