mast plate help!

[Fishman]

 I know what you mean when walking a drill bit on a broken screw.
 Before you attempt to reverse drill.  I'd soak it over night with generous amounts of PB blast or similar products. A little heat is alway helpful to.

Make sure your center punch has a sharp point. I like those spring loaded push center punch's. If the screw is domed you may want to sand it flat if possible.  If you get the center punch hole right you'll get it out.

[Rhodetripper]

Love all the feedback.

So I attempted to drill out the sheared screw and somewhat successful in that but ended up running the bit completely through the plate.

Once I saw that the aluminum wasn’t as hard to drill into as I had imagined, I drilled three holes into the bottom plate that align with the screws on the mast. The bottom  plate is thankfully flat on one side with a concave channel on the other. I countersunk the wholes slightly although they still sit a little proud, the channel allows the plate that I am running my screws through to sit flush against the board.

All in all, seems like a strong fit and way more rigid that the original set up. The true test will be getting it in the water but I have to imagine it will be at least as strong as the original plate design, while still allowing me to swap masts if I need to.   Now I just need to get used to screwing the plate to the board each time