Listen to Pete!

So a few weeks ago on vacation, hit a rock that bent the prop pretty good. When we got home, I put on my spare prop, had to re-align engine/strut to allow prop to spin easily with 2 fingers (less than .003" runout). Shaft appeared to be OK, but after a quick 5 min run on the lake, determined it was bent due to the vibrations/noise.
Ordered new ARE shaft and started dissassembling drive train to prepare for install and to have strut double checked.
Prior to the hit, alignment was spot on (within .001", 1 finger prop spin). Also, last year (approx 30 engine hours ago) I removed the shaft to install new strut bearings, and removing the flange took every bit of strength I had. Was acutally concerned I was going to break bolts or bend the flange it was on so tight.
Anyways, after about 30 combined mins of running at headway speed (to get back to dock after hit) and to test out shaft (5-20 mph for a few mins), removing the flange this time was like butter. 2 bolts with minimum effort to remove.
My takeaway from this is that a misaligned engine/bent shaft can fret a shaft in very little time. Had I kept running in this condition for another few hours am pretty convinced bad things would have happened. I had always thought in the back of my mind that Pete was a bit conservative with his fixation (fetish?) on alignmnet, but am now a firm believer!
If you haven't checked alignment lately, do it now.
Thx
Ron