Why Coastal Towns Celebrate Strange Festivals

The Sea Keeps a Different Calendar

Inland Britain marks its year with harvests, saints' days and the opening of the cricket season. Coastal Britain marks it with tides, storms and the memory of men who did not come home. That is the short answer to why seaside towns celebrate festivals that make visitors raise an eyebrow: a barrel of burning tar carried through the streets at midnight, a hobby horse dancing itself to death, a pie with fish heads poking out of the crust. None of it is random. Each oddity began as a piece of practical risk management, and most of them still are.

When your livelihood depends on a boat, the weather and a shoal of fish you cannot see, you develop habits. Some are religious, some are superstitious, and most are a bit of both. The festivals that survive are the ones that still do a job: binding a community together before the season starts, raising money for the lifeboat, teaching children which way the tide runs. If you want to understand a harbour town, go when it is celebrating.

Blessing the Boats: Holy Water, Flags and a Nod to the Weather

Blessing services are the quiet heart of the coastal year. Boats are scrubbed, dressed with bunting and flags, and brought alongside the quay while a minister or priest walks the line with holy water. Nets are blessed too, and sometimes the crews, and the families standing behind them. At Hastings the Orthodox Blessing of the Sea sees a wooden cross thrown into the water and swimmers diving in after it, whatever the temperature. Newlyn, Padstow, Whitby and a string of Scottish harbours all hold their own versions.

It looks like pageantry. It is really a public acknowledgement of danger. Nobody in the congregation needs reminding what a February gale can do to a ten-metre boat, and the service gives the whole town a chance to say so out loud before another season begins.

Luck You Can Carry: Fishermen's Taboos and Small Charms

Ask a retired skipper about luck and you will get a list, delivered with a straight face. Some of the most stubborn rules:

• Certain words are banned aboard: rabbit, pig, salmon, hare, fox, minister. Say "the long-tailed fellow" instead and everyone relaxes.
• Never whistle on a boat. Whistling calls the wind, and you will get more of it than you wanted.
• Never turn a boat against the sun, or anti-clockwise, when casting off.
• New shoes, opened umbrellas and dropped buckets are all bad news on the morning of a sailing.
• Fridays are a poor day to start a voyage; Thursdays are considered lucky.
• A silver coin under the mast, or set into the keel, keeps the boat honest. Renaming a vessel needs a proper ceremony, or you may as well sell her.
• The first fish of the season given away to a stranger, or to the church, is luck shared rather than lost.

You can call these superstitions, and the fishermen would probably agree with you. But they also give a crew a set of shared rules at sea, when the only thing between order and panic is habit. A taboo you can control is worth having when the weather is not.

Races with a Purpose: Gigs, Rafts and Silver Balls

Coastal races are rarely about the winning. The World Pilot Gig Championships on the Isles of Scilly, held in early May, grew out of working boats that once raced out to incoming ships to put a pilot aboard. Now hundreds of crews row six-oared gigs across the water, and the whole archipelago turns out to watch. Harbour raft races are a scrappier affair: pallets, oil drums and rope, launched with great optimism, sinking within sight of the crowd. Nobody minds. Sinking is half the entertainment.

At St Ives, the Feast Day sees a silver ball hurled through the streets by adults and children alike, a tradition tied to the consecration of the parish church and held on the first Monday after 3 February. And around the coast, Boxing Day and New Year's Day swims at Tenby, Whitby and Porthcawl pull crowds into cold water in fancy dress, mostly for charity. All of it raises money, fills the pubs out of season, and reminds the next generation which way the harbour faces.

Fire and Darkness: When the Old Year Meets the Tide

Midwinter needs light, and fishing towns have always been good at supplying it. In Lerwick, Up Helly Aa fills the last Tuesday of January with a torchlit procession and the burning of a Viking galley. In Burghead on the Moray coast, the Burning the Clavie ceremony on 11 January sends a flaming tar barrel up to Doorie Hill to mark the old New Year. Padstow's 'Obby 'Oss on 1 May brings two hobby horses out to dance through the town, with the day's songs rising and falling until the Oss finally goes down. Mousehole keeps Tom Bawcock's Eve on 23 December, with stargazy pie and a story about a man who braved the storm to feed the village.

Fire, noise and procession all do the same work: they push back the dark in the leanest weeks of the year and make a small place feel large.

Travelling Well: How to Join In Without Getting It Wrong

Dates are often tied to tides, moons and saints rather than the nearest weekend, so check locally before booking. Arrive early, park well outside the centre, and expect the day to start quietly: a dawn service, a procession at six in the morning, a pub filling by nine. Dress for weather that changes three times before lunch, in waterproofs and proper boots. Watch where you stand, never step into a procession, and do not touch costumes or props without asking. Some dances and rituals are for residents only, and that is fair enough. Buy something from the stalls, listen to the people beside you, and stay for the evening. The best part of any coastal festival usually happens after the official programme has finished.