The Winners of the 2021 Hands Across The Sea Sweepstakes

Each year, Hands Across The Sea and American Sailing team up to raise money to help literacy projects in the Caribbean. To date, ASA members have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars that have supplied over half a million books to over 167,000 children in the Eastern Caribbean.  

American Sailing is proud to support The Hands Across The Sea Sweepstakes and is excited to announce this year’s winners.  In 2021, 946 ASA Members raised over $71,000 dollars to help supply books, educational materials, and professional development to schools and libraries in the Eastern Caribbean.

These winners will receive:

Grand Prize: A week-long charter in the Caribbean courtesy of Horizon Yacht Charters, St. Vincent.

Second and Third Prize: A luxurious seven-night stay for six (three rooms) at The Verandah Resort & Spa in Antigua or at the St. James’s Club, Morgan Bay, St. Lucia, courtesy of Elite Island Resorts.

And the Winners are…

Grand Prize Winner, Elizabeth Hulick –writer and artist –returned to sailing in 2019 after a nearly 30-year hiatus. First taught at UW-Madison’s Hoofers Sailing Club on Lake Mendota in the 80s, she began again with Portland Sailing, an independent sailing school on the Columbia River in Portland, Oregon.  

After taking every course offered (some twice) over two summers, she also crewed on a river navigation 2 nights and 3 days downriver (and back up) and crossed the infamous Columbia River Bar to sail on the ocean twice. In 2021, Elizabeth certified with the American Sailing Association during a week-long learn’n’cruise at San Juan Sailing in Washington (passing 101, 103, 104) to skipper larger yachts. 

Elizabeth is the recent owner of a Catalina Capri 22 and is ready for some adventure. She has become an active member of the Portland-based Oregon Women’s Sailing Association (OWSA) and she firmly believes every girl should and can learn to sail!

On literacy:

“Reading is everything human. Every story and fact is there to be read of this wondrous world and universe. Books and literacy are also, and perhaps most essentially, access. They are access to a better future, to other cultures, to history, to fantasy, to current events. Literacy is the key to the door of everything beyond ourselves and our immediate lives. It enables and opens vastly. This essentially human act of reading also brings immeasurable joy.”

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Second Prize Winner and ASA member James Sheehan grew up in Cork, Ireland not far from the world’s oldest yacht club the Royal Cork Yacht club (founded in 1720). Summers were spent fishing off the Old Head of Kinsale when not a day went by without him being either on or in the water. James completed his Bareboat certification in 2018 in the Bay of Biscayne. James and his wife Yanee have traveled the world living in Europe, Asia, and now for the second time again in the US. Favorite vacation destinations include Costa Rica and Thailand –water is never far away. James’s Granduncle was a missionary Priest located for many years in the West Indies, on the island of Carriacou, and he sees his support of Hands Across the Sea as a continuation of his family’s legacy of bringing education and literacy to the children of the Caribbean. 

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Third Prize Winner and ASA Member David Askey has been sailing small boats off and on for many years and currently sails at Lake Nockamixon in Pennsylvania and on the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland.  David became a member of the ASA in 2020 when he made the choice to formalize and expand his sailing knowledge. He started with a sailing course in PA with Captain In You and then added some exceptional courses with the Maryland School of Sailing on the Chesapeake. He enjoys new experiences and challenges and intends to continue taking ASA courses, looking forward to crewing with others and perhaps chartering a boat in the Caribbean. David and his wife Lisa are active in their church with outreach to needy families. They have each worked for a private K-12 school in PA for over 25 years, David in IT and Lisa as the PreK-12th grade Librarian. Reading to children, including grandchildren, is perhaps her most treasured activity.

“When I saw the original information from Hands Across the Sea I was interested in your organization and wanted to contribute, the sweepstakes were just an incidental addition.  Now the vision of a vacation combined with a sailing course, combined with volunteering with Hands Across the Sea in the Caribbean might well be a dream come true.”

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For more information or to donate visit handsacrossthesea.org.