Our story

How hands at sea became hands across the ocean

July 2026 · By Ian

Hand and Foot at sea — the table that started it all.
Left to right: Angela, Russ, Ian, Linda, Mark, Karyn.

This is a story about how six people from three different continents met on a cruise ship, discovered a common passion, and managed to keep it going together even after returning to their homes.

My wife and I love cruising. We’re Welsh expats, happily retired on the Costa del Sol — living the dream, mostly — but we get itchy feet once in a while, and that’s when we take to the sea. Waking up in a new port or even a new country is a great experience, and we love the luxury of being looked after so well on our travels. One of the best parts is the interesting people you meet.

One question I’m often asked is: what do you do on sea days? One good option is the pre-lunch quiz. We joined a team hosted by a great couple, Russ and Linda from Hollywood, Florida, and we got on so well that they asked if we’d like to join them in one of their favourite games — Hand and Foot. We were a little perplexed at first. What sort of game has a name like that?

We started playing and quickly realised it’s a very enjoyable game, especially with friends who like a bit of banter. It was so good that we asked another couple we’d met on the boat — Mark and Karyn from Melbourne — to join us. We quickly established a regular afternoon session, often playing not only on sea days but any day we were back from shore with enough time.

When the cruise was over, we missed those daily Hand and Foot sessions. We were thrilled when Russ contacted us and suggested we try to keep the game going using WhatsApp on our laptops. It worked OK after a fashion, but it just wasn’t the same — dealing three sets of cards instead of everyone drawing from the same deck.

Before I retired I was a software engineer. My experience was with business apps, not games, but I decided that with a little help from modern AI tools I should be able to put together something that let us play from one shared deck, chat, and enjoy the banter just as we had aboard ship. A key goal was to keep the experience as close as possible to how we played together on those lovely afternoons on board ship.

I was quite surprised at how quickly I could get something together (I wish I’d had these tools available when I was slogging away writing code for all those years!). A week later we tried the new app and we were already able to play a full hand through while we chatted: Russ and Linda at 6:00 a.m. in Florida, Angela and me at midday in Spain, and Mark and Karyn at 8 in the evening in Melbourne. The system wasn’t perfect, but with everybody on board to shake out the issues, within a couple of weeks we had it playing exactly as it used to be on the ship.

I added an auto-player so anybody could play even if no friends were available. Angela loves it and spends hours on it on her phone every week.

We loved it so much that we decided to make it available to anyone who loves playing Hand and Foot. We do not want to make it a glitzy, commercial app with ads (there are plenty of those available). We want to keep the experience as enjoyable and authentic as possible, with all the conversation and banter that we enjoy.

The unavoidable issue is that running things like video servers is expensive. So to make it work we only ask the person who hosts a table for a small contribution — everyone else joins for free. We also offer three free games with no subscription or credit card needed, plus a free round with video, so no one has to pay anything until they have tried it.

Hopefully you’ll find it as great as we do. If you already have a regular table, this is for you — start a free game, share a room code, and keep the banter going.

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