When the shaft was taken out this is how it looked. There have always been a couple of spots of electrolysis degradation but in general the shaft looked good.

After it broke it was plain to see that the shaft wasn't in good shape at all and was badly deteriorated all the way through. Only a small spot was holding it together.

Again, our vessel waited until we were out of trouble to break (she's done that 3 times. I'm beginning to believe it has some kind of awareness or soul which is a scary and paranoid idea. After the shaft broke we actually sailed to the mooring we were headed for only 1/2 mile away from the breakdown (we did 55 miles that day). That was after motoring down the ICW most of the previous night on a new moon.(nl)