Off-center shaft

[dhyams]

A while back when I was changing my shaft packing (to take care of the river that was flowing from there when I bought the boat), I had a really hard time threading the packing nut back on. Luckily TitanTN was around to give me some advice as to get that job done, so props again to him!!

Anyway, I ended up removing the short hose that is part of the stuffing box (you can see it removed in the pics below), revealing how the shaft exits the hull. As you can see, it is pretty far off-center.

Is this something I would worry about and fix? If so, how to fix? Do I have the mess with the engine mounts to recenter? I have only owned the boat for a couple of months now, so I don't know its history or whether it has been like this from the beginning. I'm not picking up any vibration when I drive, so it's not like I'm trying to diagnose some other problem. Just not sure whether this is something to be concerned with or not.
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[ian ashton]

That's what she said.

[DOCDRS]

The way to determine if there is a problem is to undoo your shaft coupler bolts and see whether your engine is out of alignment. If it is then your strut bushings are probably toast and should be replaced. If everything is aligned then you are ok, its just the strut / shaft angle so the shaft is not in alignment with the rudder(most likely).