AFTER a long history of running the tradition, Portland’s Mission to Seafarers will no longer run the blessing of the fleet, now a part of the Upwelling Festival.

The Mission’s primary activities is supporting crews from visiting ships to the Port, and manager Neville Manson said that with low volunteer numbers and an increase in insurance costs and requirements, they have had to make some sacrifices.

The blessing is an ancient ceremony stemming from the Mediterranean where a church leader, as the name suggests, gives a blessing to local boats ahead of the fishing season.

A blessing was held annually in Portland for a long time by the Portland Professional Fishing Association and the Mission to Seafarers prior to the start of the fishing season which lapsed for a time before re-emerging with the first upwelling festival in 2009.

That return saw some fun added to the proceedings, with an icy swimming race out from Henty beach to retrieve a cross thrown in the water from the trawler wharf.

Mr Manson said he was sad to let the Mission’s long held tradition go, but the combination of a number of factors made it unavoidable.

“The volunteers, money, COVID really impacted us, and the risk involved with the swimming leg is really difficult to get through our insurance unfortunately,” he said.

Over the years, the blessing has moved from something for fishermen to an event for the broader community.

“We had some great supporters on the boats, those guys have moved on from that sort of traditional fishing industry now,” Mr Manson said.

“The season used to start on a certain day and they actually traditionally all went out on that day, but they are out all around the year now as long as the weather is good, things have changed a lot.”

With that change, Mr Manson said the Mission is hoping to hand over responsibility for the event to another organisation or group.

“We are certainly open to support anybody else that wants to officially run it, we will certainly help out, and really want it to keep going,” he said.

The Misson is also desperate for more help, through volunteering and donations, with the work that it continues to do, Mr Manson urges anyone interested to get in touch.