ventured

Sorry to have taken a year to reply. The Lazy Mate system I built has rings on the topping lift and cord with stopper balls to each eyelet on the main, but frankly I don't like the system at all. Very hard to get a neat fold of the main onto the boom. I'm going to replace it with a more conventioanl Lazy Jack system andarrange to have the Lazy Jacks out of the way when hauling up the main.

I somehow don't think this message was sent to me until today. Or I already responded. I am 3000 miles from my boat so I can't help you with the outside diameter of the shaft. As a delivery skipper I hated the mechanical dripless packing as when they fail, you have a major problem. I hear they do not fail often from their proponents, but I had it happen 2X on deliveries. Water spraying everywhere and I was 80 offshore. There are now packing materials you can put in a standard packing nut that are basically dripless and work fine. These can be adjusted and fixed underway and are, in my opinion, safer and preferable to a complicated and expensive mechanical solution though they must be installed according to instructions. Whenever I post my experience and opinion on line, there is a hail of defensive responses. In some cases, my comments have been removed--I think at the behest of advertising supporters of websites. FWIW. You need to decide for yourself.