I know there are adhesives used in small planes for bonding metals. But, I really don't want to pay that much for some glue.

After I started thinking about this I came to the conclusion that I could use some shour head socket head cap screws; one on each side of the mast step. This would only take drilling and tapping two holes. And, it may even allow some fine tuning/adjustment in the mast rotation. The trick is to find a thread that can handle the impacts without stripping the hole.

I gues I could always make a spacer that has a counterbored hole in the center to accept the SHCS and protect the screw from the impact loads.

I did see a guy on the Hobie forums who has a mast step for sale cheap.