If this is not a totally new and unique idea, I appologize, but I have never seen it before so I give John credit for it.
I always enjoy looking at John B's handiwork on his boat. He seems to be one of the few people who makes a lot of his own fittings. At Atlanta I noticed his extremely clean jib stay/boom connection. The jib stay just disappears into a hole in the top of boom. I asked John about it and he talked me thru a little demo.
He drills a hole in the top of the boom and cuts a thin slot aft of the hole with a Dremel.
He takes a little metal ball from a key chain/light pull and drills out one end of it oversized. Runs the jib stay (out of the bottom of the jib) thru the ball (entering the ball thru the small hole/with the big hole in the ball facing down). Ties a knot in the jib stay wire - so the knot bottoms out inside the ball. He CA glues the knot inside the bsll. Slips the ball into the hole in the top of the boom. Pulls it back into the slot and wraps a piece of red electrical tape over the hole (which is forward of the jib).
It is really slick and clean - ought to be the new standard way of doing this, I think.
He said this also aids in making it easy and non-destructive to change jibs on a boom as well. No unscrewing, no cutting of the jib stay.
He does this same thing on all of his stays as well with a hole/slot/ball inside the mast.
Scott