Out on a Mission with Sea Shepherd “It’s better to protect the coral than to repair it”

After his express voyage aboard an Ocean Fifty between Saint-Malo and Le Havre, our special correspondent Brieuc Maisonneuve sends us news from southwestern Mexico, where he has joined a crew dedicated to protecting the environment aboard a motorized trimaran.

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Published 28/11/2025

By Gilles Ruffet

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Issue: 205

Published: jan. / feb. 2026

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Who: Brieuc Maisonneuve and the Sea Shepherd crew
Where: Scorpion Reef, Yucatán, Mexique
Multihull: Leen 56
Website: www.seashepherd.org

Under the blazing Yucatán sun, a stone’s throw from the quiet port of Progreso, a trimaran unlike any other patrols the turquoise waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Its name: Roger Payne. Its familiar silhouette betrays its lineage: it is the very first Leen 56 ever built, a pioneer of an efficient and seaworthy motor trimaran design.
After crisscrossing the fjords of Alaska under private ownership, this multipower exploration vessel has found a new calling. Taken on by the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, it now sails to defend one of the last coral sanctuaries in the Gulf of Mexico: Scorpion Reef, a fragile atoll located over 60 miles offshore.
On board, a team of scientists, volunteers, and committed sailors works together to track down illegal boats that plunder stocks of conch, those iconic mollusks now threatened with extinction. The Roger Payne serves as a logistical base for surveillance, research, and environmental education, in partnership with the Mexican Navy and the Ministry of the Environment.
Its name pays tribute to Dr. Roger Payne (1935-2023), an American marine biologist, world-renowned for discovering the vocal communication of humpback whales in the 1970s. His recordings, broadcast around ...

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