Local Sailor Plans a Second Transatlantic Adventure

The past, the present, the future…what’s on your ‘bucket list’?

Cornwall native Dean Swift is about to tackle a second crossing of the Atlantic Ocean with his 25 foot, home-built, wooden yacht Lucky Linda. Laid down in 1986 in his back yard and launched in 1995 at Cornwall Island, his home-awayfrom-home has taken him to the Bay of Fundy (Canada’s east coast), the Azores (mid Atlantic), then on to Portugal, and further to Morocco then the Canary Islands (Spain).

His latest jaunt with Lucky Linda was to the island nation of the Republic of Cape Verde off the west coast of Africa. Up to now Dean has had the good fortune of finding, for the most part, a compatible mate to share in the sense of achievement felt after a two or three weeks long passage. Dean has written books recounting the good, the bad, and yes, the ugly of his ventures, from calms to storms, from smooth sailing to dealing with malfunctioning or broken gear. Periods of calm and calamity were the norm. From ‘So You Want to Build a Boat’. The Bay of Fundy. “But what caught my eye was the huge, swirling mass of water between myself and this second point. I stared at it. Had the fog been thicker I would not have seen it, and might have easily been caught in it had I veered off course. This monstrous whirlpool being created by the tidal current past that chunk of rock could have, without a doubt in my mind, swallowed whole, Lucky Linda and her crew.”

From ‘Driven’. On approaching the Azores. “Last night was a beautiful night for sailing. The wind was steady and from the right direction. There was a full moon. I needed to wear a jacket and put on my long pants, since the temperature had dropped a few degrees. But I didn’t mind that. I remembered the coast of Nova Scotia, where you needed foul weather gear, you could cut the fog with a knife, and your eye glasses were continually fogged over. And the varying wind. Yes, this is good sailing.”

From ‘The Canary Islands and Cape Verde’. “With only a few hours sleep since leaving Rubicon, was I hallucinating. He said that everything looked just fine. Then. Out of the darkness, dead ahead, a wall, a black, jagged stone wall, just metres from our bow. I spun the wheel. It was that close.”

Lucky Linda would be berthed at various ports of call for long periods, allowing Dean and his wife Linda the opportunity to visit those far away places at their leisure. Linda enjoys the water and the boat, but she will not be onboard if outside the safety of a harbour.

The plan for the next episode in this series for Lucky Linda is a passage from Cape Verde to Recife, Brazil, a distance of approximately 1600 nautical miles, where she will begin her touring of South America’s east coast. Depending on what Neptune has in store, a time frame for the passage should be about three weeks. Equatorial squalls and the doldrums at the equator could cause some delay.

Dean will be going to Cape Verde about the beginning of December and spend an estimated three to four weeks to provision and prepare Lucky Linda for the voyage. The goal is to sail the first week of 2025 at the latest. As of yet he has not found a mate for this sailing. At 25 feet on deck, accommodation on Lucky Linda is close but comfortable with a company of two.

To watch Dean and Lucky Linda on YouTube, search North Atlantic cruising 25ft yacht Lucky Linda TransAtlantic sailing.