Great post @agrestic. Thank you for the 'how tos', the boat transformation is amazing!!!
As i'm soaking up every bit of knowledge about sailboats, I so far at the stage of discovering mostly how much i really don't know. Trying to learn about boats without owning one is a steep learning curve.
I felt the need to google the thingy you were talking about, and share an image here for reference, so that others can look at it and scratch their heads about the application of this 'chupchik' :
That is the very thing! It pops into a slot on the bottom of the boom. Kinda a weird way to do it but I am reverse engineering old man logic. Sometimes they get it spot on and apply wisdom and genius, other times they fit what they happen to have in a biscuit tin stored in a damp corner - my game is to figure out which I am dealing with.