Photo by Jeannie Frey Rhodes Photography

From the June issue: Setting sail with Hank Saurage

Louisianans, surrounded for decades by brackish swamps and winding rivers, have every right to count themselves among the water-faring people of this country, trained from a young age how to bunker down in Gulf-stirred hurricanes, loop a hook from a snapper’s mouth, and watch out for moccasins coiled like hoses on shorelines. The same gene could be said to reside in Hank Saurage, who after 45 years on waters both near and far, finds his passion for sailing stronger than ever, especially in the easy summer breeze over Lake Pontchartrain.

Having recently won the USA Speed Challenge at the 2016 RS Aero National Championship in Cascade Locks—all the way up in Oregon’s Columbia River Gorge—Saurage often peppers his more worldly races with excursions on his wood-trimmed boat, the Mirage, right here in Louisiana’s Northshore. Viewing his love of sailing—a pastime influenced by his late father—as a near-religious experience, Saurage looks to the water as a way to clear his mind, but also to inspire the same reverence and independence in his daughters.

To learn more about Saurage and his sailing exploits in and out of his home state, check out our cover story in the June issue of inRegister, available on newsstands now.