Graeme Cocks was born in Perth, Western Australia. A child of the sixties, he grew up near the banks of the Swan River and on the beaches and islands along the coast first explored by Dutch seafarers in 1616. Fremantle was his home town, and rowing at the Fremantle Rowing Club was his sporting passion. He studied journalism at the WA Institute of Technology (now Curtin University) and after a brief foray into journalism and newspaper management, he spent a year backpacking through South America. It changed his life. The wanderlust never left him and he returned to write and edit travel magazines so he could keep travelling. He later ran the communications section of the WA Tourism Commission during the heady years of the post America’s Cup tourism boom in the State. An opportunity to work at the Endeavour replica sailing ship project connected him with the world of wooden shipbuilding. A casual conversation over breakfast aboard Cook’s ship, led him to meet the originator of the idea to build a replica of the first ship to chart Australian shores. Soon, he was enthralled by the idea and he became one of the founding members of the Friends of the Duyfken Project, later taking over the whole team as Project Director. He arranged the launch and final fit-out of the ship. He was responsible for the history-making Chevron 2000 Duyfken Expedition to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Queensland; and the VOC 2002 Duyfken Voyagie (sic) from Sydney to Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Mauritius, South Africa, Namibia, the Azores and The Netherlands. It remains the longest ‘Age of Discovery’ replica ship voyage ever undertaken. After 20 years involvement with Duyfken, including a number of years as Chair of the Duyfken 1606 Replica Foundation, he left to pursue another passion—historic racing cars. He has contributed to maritime books and is the author of many books on motoring history. Twice shortlisted for Book of the Year at the International Historic Motoring Awards in London (2015 and 2016), he’s the only Australian writer to have achieved this honour. His book ‘Red Dust Racers’ also won the Gold Medal in the Transportation category of the International Independent Publishers Awards in New York in May 2017. His book, ‘Claude Deane. Western Australia's Motor Dealer Extraordinaire’ was short-listed for the Royal Automobile Club of the United Kingdom’s Motoring Book of the Year Awards in 2020. It was also runner-up in the Royal WA Historical Society AE Williams Lee Steere 2020 Publication Prize. He was curator of the Fremantle and York motor museums. Today, he writes motoring history and assists owners to unearth the history of their early motor cars. He still gazes to the west at sunset in the hope of seeing square sails on the horizon.