Story: Lowering the mast

This is probably my last story, since I don't recall any other interesting events during our last boat ownership experience. This one follows on the heels of the last one with the same message - don't trust your doubts to the experts. If you think it's a bad idea, it probably is. Here's the story.

We sold our sailboat, the Irreantum, on Ebay to a fellow in Idaho. This gentlemen travelled quite a distance to come over, put together the cradle (the same one we used), and take the boat home. One of the challenges we faced, was lowering the rather large, heavy mast. I've never seen how masts are supposed to be raised or lowered, but I'd sure like to. You already know how we raised the mast. I remembered it quite well, so I had reservations about lowering. I think think poles with u shaped notches (or some other secure way to control the mast) is what's need to lower it safely, but that's not what we did.

Instead, we rigged an interesting arrangement of lines from the mast to the dock in order to control the mast. Being as heavy as it was, we lost control soon after we started tipping it and it came crashing down between two other boats. It cracked a spreader, but I was just happy to see we hadn't damaged any other boats.

That's it.