There are some things that you should never do when maintaining a Cherub. At least not if you want to keep on sailing reliably

When laminating you will always need to use more resin to throughly wet out the cloths than the minimum required by the final laminate. By using peal ply even on smaller repair jobs you can soak up the remaining resin that ends up on the surface after consolidating the layup. You may well say that peel ply is expensive. Well when compared to the sandpaper that you would otherwise use to remove the excess resin peel ply suddenly looks very reasonable. Add to that the time saved by avoiding the additional sanding and you're quids in.

Never attach fittings to your foam boat with wood screws, it just does not work, they will pull out. You may say it is OK if you use a wooden backing piece and the fitting is low load, but you are taking a risk the wood will absorb water and get soft, the fitting will pull out.

Never bolt high load fittings to a foam sandwich panel without a large washer or backing plate or at least replacing the foam with a plug of filler. The foam will crush and it will break.

Never fit a hatch cover to a curved deck. Hatch covers tend to leak at the best of times and if you are trying to fit it to a bit of deck that is not flat then it will always leak.

Never skimp on the thickness of the centreboard case. The centreboard case takes loads of abuse and once the boat has been built it is difficult to get to, so there is no point in saving a few grams by building the case super flimsy. Any weight you save there will more than be made up a couple of years down the line by a small leak that you can’t fix.

Never tie string to a pressed shackle or deck eye. If there is any movement in the string the sharp edges of the fitting will saw through the string, if lightly loaded it may last a few years, but heavily loaded it may not last the day!

Composite Spinny Chute. If you have a foredeck you will find that the kite halyard will cut grooves in the rear edge of the chute. If this is reinforced with a stainless or ally plate it will last for years. This needs to be faired in with no sharp edges of protruding screws otherwise your kite will be in shreds. Some fore decked boats are fitted with a stainless or ally tube mouted horizontally across the back of the chute just below deck level. This works too.

If you don't have a foredeck go for a stainless hoop style chute. Do not try a composite equivalent. You will forever be filling the groves cut in it by the kite halyard.