BUFFALO, N.Y. — The best things in life tend to find you when you least expect it.
That certainly rang true for skipper Jack Kiterenos.
"A good friend of mine was into sailing and so he said, 'why don't you come out with us some night?'" Kiterenos said. "So, I did and that was the end of my life as I knew it.”
Flash forward four decades.
"I've been sailing ever since," Kiterenos said. "I bought a small O'Day 25. That was the first boat. I had that for two weeks and then sold it and bought another boat and then another boat and another boat and here we are 40 years later in a TP52.”
A TP52 sailing yacht named “Nimbus.”
“Nimbus is like a dark storm cloud," Kiterenos said. "A threatening storm cloud.”
Nimbus is also the only one of its kind in all of Buffalo, with a name to match its mission.
"This is a grand prix racing yacht," Kiterenos said. "That’s all this boat does. This is not a Sunday afternoon up and down the break wall with your family and three kids.”
“This boat is more machine than boat," Nimbus grinder and trimmer Bryan Burhans said. "It’s so much fun. I haven't smiled this much racing in years, you’re just going so fast.”
“It's like driving a formula one car down the 33,” Nimbus mainsail trimmer Rick Egloff said.
The Nimbus crew is now getting ready to race this yacht not down the 33, but in Harbor Springs, Michigan for one of the nation’s best-known sailing traditions, The Ugotta Regatta.
"That’s a big deal for us because we're gonna be racing against, this is an emotional thing it really is, this is a big deal for us, against ten other TP52s," Kiterenos said. "Where else on the planet are you gonna be able to get that experience? It's a big deal for us and we're very excited about it.”
The Nimbus crew certainly has a mix of racing experience, but a contest of this stage will be uncharted waters.
"We're just a bunch of guys from Buffalo who like to go sailing," Kiterenos said. "Some of these boats that we are going to race against in Harbor Springs, they have full professional crews.”
"It's a young man's game but all of us old guys were handling it, so we're excited to go north with it and have a blast,” Burhans said.
“It's a dream I've had forever to sail against these people and just compete against the best people there are, and we get to do that," Nimbus tactician Eric Tanski said. "Very grateful.”
"It’ll be good for us to go up against the best of the best of the best," Kiterenos said. "We think we're pretty good so we'll see, we'll see how we fair.”
Nimbus and its crew are now ready to race in the Ugotta Regatta on July 26 to the 28 before setting sail back to Buffalo on a four-day voyage.