Organisers of multi-award winning festival Fishstock Brixham 2016 are over the moon with this year’s festival which took place on Saturday 10 September to raise funds for welfare charity The Fishermen’s Mission.  Despite early rain soaking the teams of stallholders and volunteers setting up on Saturday, the skies cleared around the time the gates opened at 10am, and rain held off for the rest of the day.

 

Definitely Something Fishy Going On …

The Cooks on a Mission team, giving live seafood demonstrations throughout the day, attracted great interest, and were especially delighted that the scrumptious fried cuttlefish on offer went down so well – cuttlefish is an important catch for Brixham, yet sadly most is exported.  Local consumers given the chance to try this delicious dish on Saturday were bowled over, and will hopefully spread the word and persuade more locals to try this delicacy.  Over £2000 worth of fresh fish – all donated by fishermen – was sold from the BTA stall.  The festival organisers wish to thank Paramount 21, Interfish, Coombe Fisheries and Fal Fish for their generous sponsorship of this annual event.

 

Stalls & Information

Festival-goers were spoilt for choice with a wider than ever range of craft, retail and information stands filling the inside of the Fish Market, and a dazzling array of fresh food and drinks providers outside lining the walkways.  The UK Garrison Stormtroopers (Star Wars characters in costume) made a big impression on the crowds (especially Darth Vader …!).  Essential information on hand from a host of marine organisations (and its importance to seafarers) was brought sharply into focus during the day, when the RNLI Torbay Lifeboat and Coastguard Rescue Teams were called away, tasked to search for a person believed to be missing from a locally-moored yacht.

Kerrie Marie
Kerrie Marie

This contributed to a few changes to vessels open to the public: as well as the Lifeboat departing on its tasking, we were disappointed that the Royal Navy Fisheries Patrol vessel cancelled at the last minute for operational reasons, but of course we understand this took priority.  Heritage vessel Iris moored alongside for visitors, and stepping into the breach (following engine problems) the ocean-going trawler Barentszee’s owners kindly sent the Brixham Beam trawler Kerrie Marie along in her place.  She proved extremely popular with visitors, resulting in over £200 being placed in the donation bucket on the gangplank (we’re sure no pirates were holding people up as they left ….).

 

Music

The fantastic mix of live music on two stages kept the crowds singing and dancing for all day until Welsh headline band 4th Street closed the show at midnight.  The ‘Fishstock Fairies’ then somehow miraculously transformed the New Fish Quay back to a working area, and handed back around midday on Sunday.

 

Final gate numbers and amount raised for the Fishermen’s Mission are yet to be confirmed, but it’s clear that the festival attracted over 4000 paying adults, so overall numbers are expected to be up on last year.  Another fantastic Fishstock Brixham – here’s to next year!

FISHSTOCK WEBSITE: http://www.fishstockbrixham.com/

FACEBOOK PAGE: https://www.facebook.com/fishstockbrixham/