"Most everything is a compromi
"Most everything is a compromise. At the area on the shaft where the flax was making contact, there is some pitting and that pitting causes the stuffing to wear out very quickly. I've already moved the stuffing box around to work a new area on the shaft. I've been running for a decade with much more leakage there than I would like. With the engines causing airflow forward, there is a good chance of this aerosol air/seawater being brought over the hardware, causing rusting. So, its either new shafting or try PSS. There is no doubt that the synthetic bellows on the PSS is less "substantial" than the reinforced, multi-ply hose that it replaces. There is an impressive amount of water that comes in when the bellows is not attached, that is true. Overall, though, I think the PSS design is robust, and it looks like it will have zero leakage performance during running. If I boated in fresh water, I would still be running conventional stuffing boxes. My stuffing boxes are very easily viewed and reached with dedicated hatches just over them. The starboard side is done, and I will likely do the port side before summer. With just a few hours on the PSS, I like what I see, and look forward to a salt-free bilge. My suggestion is if your existing stuffing boxes don't need adjustment before 50 to 100 hours of run time, I'd not replace with PSS. But if they become a nuisance like mine, the one hour of work and $250 or so of material was well spent. I think I mentioned this before that I did this job at dockside, despite more than one warning not to do this in-water in the PSS install sheet. It was nothing that a rag and one bilge pump couldn't deal with, but I would not do it in a physically challenging position either."
