The pair, along with their replica 15th century caravel Notorious, has been making waves all up the east coast of Australia.

The little black ship, built in Graeme’s yard, has attracted so much interest in Queensland ports that even Hollywood has taken notice.

“People think that we’re the Black Pearl all the time,” Graeme said of the ship featured in the blockbuster Pirates of the Caribbean films starring Johnny Depp.

“Ever since we sailed into Port Douglas the day that it was announced they would be filming in Australia, and everybody thought we were the Black Pearl.

“We sailed through the Gold Coast seaway on the same day as Johnny Depp arrived back in Australia after his break in America after injuring his arm.”

The makers of the Pirates of the Caribbean 5: Dead Men Tell No Tales, which has been filmed on the Gold Coast, even approached the couple about using Notorious in the movie.

“We were approached when we were on the Gold Coast last year by the art director,” Graeme said.

“He was absolutely excited about it and really wanted to use this ship in the movie. However, he kept saying: ‘We’d have to make some changes you wouldn’t like’.

“In the end we found out that the changes we wouldn’t like were to cut her in half horizontally so that the top half could be put on a sand dune to film a scene there.

“He then realised that was never going to happen, so he decided he could make a replica of the top half to do that with.

“But when he went back to the bosses in America, that because she was going to be the main character feature vessel in the movie, they just could not have that in private ownership because of complications with copyright and all that sort of thing.

“They decided that unless we sold the ship to Hollywood, they just could not use it. She was just not for sale.

“They missed out. We like to say that we taught Hollywood a lesson and that’s that there are some things their money can’t buy.”

Graeme said that discussions never progressed to how much the film studio was willing to pay for the ship he had spent so long building by hand. “He kept saying that you’d be surprised what they’d offer.

“It would have meant unloading all our possessions on the jetty and jump on a plane with a pocket full of money. What then? We love doing what we’re doing. It’s a fantastic and interesting life.

“We just weren’t prepared to give it up at that stage.

“We had the insurance valuers scratching their heads because marine insurance often works on replacement value and a ship like this can’t be replaced.

“Looking at the value put on other full wooden ship reconstructions like this, in the four to five million dollars maybe. Who knows? Notorious is a little bit special in that she is so unusual.”

It was in 1999 when Graeme was battling chronic fatigue that he first entertained the idea of building a ship.

He had been collecting unwanted cypress trees from farms across the south-west and turning them into furniture he sold in his Warrnambool and Melbourne stores. “We’d collected about 300 tonnes. It was quite a yard full.

“I had been planning on building some sort of a boat and when we did some research on the timber we found it was actually a fantastic boat-building timber.”

During the two years Graeme was ill he researched and drew up plans for the caravel.

“The irony of someone in my condition thinking of taking on such a massive task wasn’t lost on me,” he said.

“Felicite thought it would be a pathway back to health, which it certainly has been.”

It was the legend of the Mahogany Ship – a vessel believed to be buried in the sand dunes south of Tower Hill – that made him more aware of caravels.

He said their small size made building a replica possible.

Notorious is the only ship of its type in the Southern Hemisphere and there is only a few in the Northern Hemisphere – in Spain and the Caribbean.

“We’ve had many people on-board who have seen all of those vessels and they say, without exception, that Notorious is by far the most beautiful and authentic feeling of them.”

Caravels were used by early Spanish and Portuguese explorers between 1450 and 1550, and enabled the Europeans to leave the Mediterranean and plunder the riches of the East.

In 2011, after more than a decade of planning and hammering, Notorious was launched in Port Fairy. By September, Graeme and Felicite had set off on their maiden voyage and in four years they have covered 11,000 miles.

“It’s been a big learning curve,” Graeme said.

“Being the only ship of its kind and the only lateen ship in Australia, you can’t really read anywhere how to sail a ship like this.”

The couple’s travels are entirely funded by visitors to the ship which attracts lots of publicity wherever they go. They charge $5 an adult and $2 per child.

“We like to keep it like that because it does allow many people who would otherwise not be able to afford it to come onboard,” Graeme said.

During the past few months, Notorious has been docked in various locations along the Queensland coast, including on the Brisbane River near South Bank.

“This is the first time any vessel has been allowed to come in here and exhibit at this location,” he said. And it’s been standing room only with hundreds of people each day touring the ship.

While the couple would like to bring the Notorious back to the south-west, the lack of facilities in the region are an issue.

“It’s a long way across Bass Strait and, as well as that, there really aren’t any facilities in Warrnambool for us,” Graeme said.

“We’ve travelled the length and breadth of the coast here and Warrnambool is without exception the largest coastal city that does not have a marina and a place for visiting ships such as ourselves.

“Really there’s nothing that Warrnambool could do that would have a bigger impact on tourism than building a marina there.”

To keep Notorious afloat, she undergoes routine maintenance and is usually easily repaired.

“Being the ship that she is we usually manage to be able to pull into a bay somewhere anchor and row in and find a suitable bit of driftwood or something. Because she’s all just made out of wood and wool and tar, anything we break, we’re not off to the ship chandler with our chequebook,” Graeme said.

So while a return trip to the south-west is not on the immediate horizon, the couple will continue its adventure along the east coast and by Christmas may even be docked at the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney’s Darling Harbour, which has contacted them about the possibility of docking there for seven weeks over the Christmas school holidays.