The ashes of Norman Sanders, who died peacefully in Canberra last September at the age of 89, were placed aboard a one-metre vessel made of marine plywood on Saturday and launched into the ocean from Corrigans Beach, south of Batemans Bay.

It was a fitting send-off for a man who loved hobby sailing, "the freedom of being on the water" and who always dreamed of navigating the ocean as the captain of his own ship.

Norm's small boat featured miniature white sails signed with farewell messages from wife Theo, three daughters, six grandchildren, 13 great grandchildren and two great great grandchildren.

"Grandad always had an obsession with wanting to own a boat, it was a dream of his for many years," Norm's granddaughter Kara Heinl said.

"So when we had his funeral, instead of flowers, mum had an idea that maybe the florist could make a boat out of the flowers.

"So they did this amazing flower arrangement on top of his casket as a boat and it had real sails, and mum had this lightbulb moment of 'hey, let's use those sails to send him out to sea'."

Norm's passion for sailing was a big deal in the family. It infiltrated summer holidays at Batemans Bay, with Norm spending hours at the marina and then making the family squash around a table in a cabin to plot the places they would all sail to and explore on a world map.

Originally from West Yorkshire, Norm first tried sailing on a family holiday with his wife and three daughters at The Broads - a network of rivers and lakes in the English counties of Norfolk and Suffolk.

The family emigrated to Australia in 1987 and Norm loved every second of his retirement years in his adopted home country. But the small boat containing his ashes is trying to make its way back to his home in the UK, more than 16,000km away.

"We have family all over England so we'd be happy for grandad to land anywhere on the coast really," Kara said.

"We just thought it's not fair to keep his ashes in a box in a cupboard somewhere, let's send him on an adventure, so we did."

Worried people would find Norm's boat out on the ocean and take it home before it reached its final destination, Kara placed a sign on the boat asking for it to be put back in the water if found.

She also shared a post on the Canberra Noticeboard Group Facebook page, which was subsequently shared more than 24,000 times and reached well wishers as far away as the Western Cape of South Africa and Texas.

Kara has set up a 'Captain Norm Sails Home' Facebook page and hopes people who find her grandad's boat will post photos to the page so his family (and the rest of the world) can stay informed of his journey.

So what would "quiet and humble" Norm think of being the captain of his own ship and of going viral?

"I just see him sailing the sea with his big smile going 'yes I did it' - he was a very quiet person, he wasn't out there, which is why he never owned a boat," Kara said.

"He didn't want flash things in life, his family was his life.

"I can just see him smiling knowing that people know he's on the sea, that's all he'd care about is 'look, these people are seeing me on the ocean'."