Sailing Rule #3: Keep the mast up.

The location of the chainplates deck penetration was marked from below with small holes drilled at the corners. Then the rectangular hole was cut out from above with the meataxe.

The cap shroud chainplate is a double wide that also includes an intermediate shroud. Note the doubler plate where the chainplate penetrates the deck, This greatly spreads the load, not that I’m in the least concerned about failure of these beefy sections.

the chainplates are then fully welded on the deck, and the edges of the welds smoothed so that there are no potential snags that could catch a line.