Ex-Las Vegas man sets sail on an around-the-world boat ride

Hours before embarking on his life's passion, Matt Sponer was not worried. He had thoroughly read up on his subject. He had bought all the right equipment (well, most of it anyway) and carried out plans to make his dream come true.

All he had to do was shove off. That was three weeks ago.

Sponer, a 1994 Bonanza High School graduate, is sailing around the world in a 40-foot sailboat christened the "Mary Francis" for his mother (who helped him buy the boat). The craft is stocked to the gills with supplies and manned by a skilled crew of Sponer's twentysomething college friends, Ryan Boutte and Matt Poulton.

But why do this? Uproot yourself from friends and family for who knows how long and face untold dangers?

"My mom keeps asking that, too," Sponer said recently during a phone conversation from his boat at the Marriott Marina in San Diego, where it was docked until the trip. After a studied pause he added, "I think in order to keep real balance in life, you need lots of experiences."

Sponer still gets a little nervous when a seasoned sailor shakes his head and offers advice.

"They'll say, 'You need a fram-a-stand,' " Sponer said, making up a fictitious tool. " 'You'll die if you don't have a fram-a-stand.' So I go and get a fram-a-stand."

A few too many trips gathering excessive sailing supplies had the then-wet-behind-the-ears sailor frustrated. But the process did teach him to rely on his sailor's instincts, and his trusty boat, as much as expensive equipment.

"There are so many things you can buy on a boat to reduce the risk of dying," he said. "For every way there is to die, you can buy 10 things to prevent it."

Sponer has been sailing for four years around the San Diego Bay, and purchased a 1985 Passport 40 sailboat two years ago. Sponer has occasionally taken month-long and two-month jaunts north to San Francisco and south to the Channel Islands to prepare for lengthy stints away from the comforts of solid ground.

Sponer prefers to navigate sans newfangled gadgetry, opting for the constellations and light of the moon to guide him. He's a romantic at heart. However, out on the open sea, he uses an advanced Global Positioning System. The GPS is linked to a handful of satellites, which pinpoint the boat's location and destination. An emergency tracking device has also been installed, which alerts the Coast Guard if, say, the boat capsizes.

The urge to take to the water hit Sponer after his older brother, Dennis, rented a 14-foot sailboat at the Marriott Marina in San Diego. After the brief trip in the open ocean Matt's eyes twinkled with possibilities.

"I showed him how (to sail), but he took it to a much higher level," said Dennis Sponer, corporate counsel for Ascentra, a Las Vegas home health care company

Dennis Sponer had seen his younger brother delve passionately into other projects, and was not surprised when he took to sailing.

Like a fish to water.

"He's a serial hobbyist, he was really into astronomy, but this hobby has lasted," Dennis Sponer said. "It takes a certain kind of person to give up everything -- human contact, a job, security -- to just go out on your own and there are not many people who can do that. He's doing exactly what he wants to do."

Dennis' mother, Mary Francis Sponer, is CEO of Ascentra and is happy with her feet on dry land in Las Vegas. But she always expected her son to one day fly the coop for far-off destinations.

"He's been really passionate about sailing, he likes navigating by the stars," she said. "He's always been adverturous and I trust him implicitly."

Water was not Sponer's first try at adventure, however.

While attending Pitzer College in San Diego, Sponer decided to get his pilot's license. But his mother was floored when she began getting credit card bills for flying instructions, long after Sponer was soaring solo over the Southwest.

"I didn't realize it until I saw the Visa bill," she said. "But he did it."

Mary Francis Sponer spent a lot of time preparing the three sailors for a long period of isolation at sea. She even took cooking lessons, buying pots and pans for the boat and teaching the bachelors how to cook in their small galley.

"They have enough food and supplies to last six months, probably a year," she said.

As a last-minute mother's touch, she ensured that they had a complete medical kit the morning they launched. Broken bones, allergies, cuts, and abrasions could all be treated.

"They have everything they could possibly need," she said.

The trio filled their coffers with supplies from Costco, loading up on hundreds of cans of green beans and corn, as well as tuna and other easy-to-store foods. They have stashed food, tools, clothing and personal items within the concealed cupboards of the teakwood-lined cabin.

Matt Sponer is aware that there is never an ideal time to leave the comforts of a "normal" life. "It's hard to leave but you'll never have it perfect," he said. "You just have to pick a point and do it."

Sponer isn't taking the well-worn route of most sailors, down through Tahiti and Marquez in Central America, where a a sailor can get a good margarita and a hot shower in a four-star hotel after three weeks at sea. Instead, Sponer said they are traveling down the Baja Peninsula for the next two months. If the weather is good, they' ll sail over to Nicaragua, Costa Rica and then on to the Galapagos Island, then visit the giant-head statues of Easter Island.

"I really want to see the (giant) heads," he said.

Sponer keeps in touch with landlubbers via "sailmail," a form of e-mail he can use in the middle of the ocean without having to dock and use expensive cyber cafes.

When he arrived in Baja, Sponer e-mailed his mother about his excellent adventure and had only one bad thing to say: He's been doing more work in the bowels of the boat than on deck. The portals leaked, the water maker overheated and various other minor mishaps have kept them on their toes.

Sponer described the beginning of the journey as the three cruised toward Baja and into Central America:

We caught a fish on the way down with a hand line trolling behind us. We caught some other fish, but they were too big for us to eat so we let them go (without a fridge on board the fish only lasts a day or so, and we don't want to be wasteful).

We got most of the seafood (lobster and shrimp) by trading with local fisherman. We've traded sunglasses, porno magazines, and beers. It's a pretty good deal: Six beers for four lobster, a porno magazine for a ziplock freezer bagful of shrimp.

The nights are usually beautiful. Without the city lights, there are a ton of stars out. It's easier to sail when the moon is out, so that we can see the sails and the swell.

On the first leg down the coast we had pretty good downwind sailing. We were a little nervous until we got the sails and the automatic steering system (windvane) working well together. There was a lot of noise from things shifting around inside the boat as it rolled through about 45 degrees, and it was a little wet (the top of a wave would sometimes enter the cockpit). But the water was warm and we were going fast, so we didn't mind.

archive