Sailing on the West Coast, the mast never comes down unless you want to inspect it or fix something. On the East Coast (at least in the Northeast) they do it every year. For a 3 month sailing season no less . The descriptions of pulling the mast in 15 or 45 minutes must be qualified by a couple of things: sails already removed and stowed, mast already prepared and disconnected, boom removed - or perhaps a very small rig. Once all that is done I can pull the masts on my boat in 30 minutes, most of that is rigging the crane. But that other stuff: removing the sails, running rigging, wiring, hydraulic connections, vangs, booms - that takes a least a day's work for me. I wouldn't complain much about unstepping the masts, it is the derigging which I don't relish.

In addition, I am currently being billed over $1000 just for the crane at the last yard that stepped the masts. The crane was on site for just and hour and a half.