I am sure that a mast step link is a great help when steping solo, but I spent all summer steping masts on hobies and flying scotts without step links, just having one person to "kick" the foot of the mast, holding it on the step, and one or two people to "throw" the mast up and hold it untill the kicker can go and attach the forestay, it also works coming down but the kicker needs to be a little bigger then.