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 Smile9 - Greg Simson of the Tasmanian Sea Canoe Club was a fellow exhibitor at the 2009 Australian Wooden Boat Festival and he had offered valuable advise while I was building Smile7. Towards the end of 2009 Greg approached me with the offer to join a class of fellow enthusiasts to build a kayak each under the guidance of Brian Schulz of Cape Falcon Kayak. I accepted and Smile9 is the result. It was an enjoyable week and was to be the start of many more kayak builds as well as my introduction to kayaking. Smile9 was subsequently bought by Robyn Donovan and now paddles in Rockhampton waters.
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 Smile10 - Another Geodesic Airolite, this one a Snowshoe12. All the thwarts and thwart supports in my Smile projects are different. Smile10 incorporated a difficult piece of Huon Pine to work with which ultimately surprised me. Smile10 was exhibited at the Geelong Wooden Boat Festival and then spent several months as part of a window display at Wilkins and Kent in Fitzroy, Melbourne before returning home. She has been my personal paddler and demo boat for a while now and is for sale........
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 Smile11 - I'd become increasingly under the spell of Percy Blandford's kayak designs and finally decided to recreate the PBK27 canvas example I had been caretaking for John Bishop, only as a Geodesic Airolite example. However, after a bit of reseach I found the PBK57 design which is the only one of Blandford's designs to use ribs. Basically the same dimensions as the PBK27 I was keen to see how the two completed craft would compare. Built in Huon and King Billy Pine, Smile11 came in at just 11kg, exactly half what the canvas covered PBK27 weighed. I was happy. Have a close look at that cockpit coaming - steam bent out of a single piece of Huon.......
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 Smile12 - The Great Tinaroo Raid is an annual event held on the shores of Lake Tinaroo in Far North Qld. Organised by the Wooden Boat Association of Cairns it is held over the Queen's Birthday Weekend in June and not to be missed. I always take the opportunity to catch up with my mate Cliff Rogers and this year he lifted his head from his woodturning long enough to mention that he wanted a canoe. Michael Storer has some innovative ideas and we chose his Quick Canoe 155 to build (basically because we only had 5 days to build it before the Raid. All done, complete with my signature black, curved decks, and then took out the "Best Boat" award.............
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 Smile13 - Winner of The Great Tinaroo Raid innaugral "Speed Tank Event" - a real speedster made of styrofoam, x-ray film, tape and nothing else - my lightest yet at just half a kilo, maybe........
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 Smile14 - another F1 kayak build, this one for Peter Burgess to partner his Baidarka. An enjoyable week long build interspersed with oysters and Moo Brew.......We experimented by substituting Paulownia for the Western Red Cedar and saved a kilo in weight - 13kg ready to paddle..
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 Of other projects during the year - The Weeping Willow Lamp, the lightweight Dacron wardrobe doors etc it is "The World's First Geodesic Airolite Internally Lit Pedestal" that deserves mention. I'd thought long and hard how to cover a concave curve (convex ones are easy).................
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