Mystery stick and furling system....

[Brion Toss]

Hi there,
Sorry to have been so long in getting to this. It looks like you have a relatively rare type of "open-backed" in-mast furler, but I can't quite recall the name of the manufacturer. I believe they are/were in Quebec. Metal Mate? Something like that. Anyway, I believe that every current in mast furler, and most of the old ones, feature an extrusion slot that is narrower than the foil, so the aft mast wall takes most of the aft load. If yours is the type I'm thinking of (and I only worked on one, many years ago), the foil is the stay, and if it isn't tuned quite hard will actually exit the mast at the middle, when under way.
That's about as close as I can get. How are the bearings?
Fair leads,
Brion Toss