Fishing on Vis – From Falkuša and Sardines to a Living Island Tradition

From Sardines to the Falkuša: How Fishing Shaped Komiža

For centuries, fishing was one of the foundations of life in Komiža. The town’s relationship with the sea extended far beyond the waters immediately outside its harbour: fishermen travelled across the central Adriatic, worked distant fishing grounds, salted their catch at sea and developed boats specifically adapted to those journeys.

At the centre of this economy was the sardine.

Research by Vis-born scholar Joško Božanić describes a community that never had more than around 3,500 inhabitants but at one point supported as many as a thousand fishermen. Their working world connected Komiža with Palagruža, Jabuka, the Italian coast and, eventually, fishing communities far beyond the Adriatic.

Much of that world disappeared during the 20th century, but its traces remain unusually visible. The Venetian tower on the waterfront houses the Fishermen’s Museum, reconstructed falkuše sail from the harbour, and the route to Palagruža is still remembered through the modern Rota Palagruzona.

A fishing town facing the open Adriatic

Komiža lies on the western side of Vis, facing away from the Dalmatian mainland and towards the open central Adriatic. That geography shaped the town’s economy.

The most productive traditional fishing grounds were not necessarily close to home. Komiža fishermen travelled considerable distances in search of small oily fish, particularly sardines, developing knowledge of winds, currents, fishing grounds and weather that was passed between generations.

Fishing also shaped the work done on land. Boats had to be built and repaired, nets maintained, salt and barrels prepared, catches processed and fish traded beyond the island.

The harbour was therefore more than a place where boats left and returned. It was the centre of an economy involving fishermen, boatbuilders, traders, factory workers and their families.

Sardines and the long journey to Palagruža

The most demanding journeys led towards Palagruža, the remote island group about 42 nautical miles from Komiža.

Before engines, reaching it meant sailing when the wind allowed and rowing when it did not. Božanić records that a falkuša could make the crossing in less than five hours with favourable wind, while rowing could take an average of around 13 hours.

Crews did not simply arrive, fish for an afternoon and sail home.

During the summer fishing season they could remain around Palagruža for approximately 20 days, working during the dark phases of the moon. Sardines caught in the nets were removed individually and salted in wooden barrels almost immediately. A five-man crew could, in productive conditions, catch and preserve several tonnes of fish during an expedition; Božanić records catches of up to six tonnes per boat.

This explains why the sardine occupies such an important place in the history of Komiža. It was not simply a common local fish. It supported a specialised offshore economy that required boats, salt, barrels, navigation skills and an extraordinary amount of physical work.

The gajeta falkuša

That offshore fishery produced one of the most distinctive working boats of the Adriatic: the gajeta falkuša.

The falkuša was developed in Komiža for long journeys towards fishing grounds such as Palagruža and Jabuka. Its defining feature was a pair of removable wooden sideboards known as falke. Raised for the voyage, they increased the height and carrying capacity of the boat. At the fishing grounds they could be removed, lowering the sides and making it easier for the crew to work with nets and the catch.

Traditional falkuše were open wooden boats powered by sail and oars. Božanić records boats around 26–29 feet long, normally worked by crews of five and capable of carrying substantial quantities of salted sardines.

The design makes more sense when understood as a response to a particular job. A falkuša had to cross open sea carrying men, nets, barrels, salt and provisions, then function as a practical fishing platform when it arrived.

It was not designed to become a symbol of Komiža. It became one because the boat and the work it performed were so closely connected with the town.

Racing for the fishing grounds

The voyage to Palagruža also developed a competitive element.

Fishing positions around the islands were valuable, and arriving before other crews could determine where a boat would fish. Historical accounts describe mass departures from Komiža, with dozens of falkuše racing across the Adriatic towards Palagruža.

The tradition is documented back to 1593. Later accounts describe regattas involving up to around 70 boats, with a cannon shot signalling the start. When the wind failed, heavily loaded crews had to row the entire route while still competing for favourable fishing positions.

Engines eventually removed the practical reason for such a race, but the route has been revived as Rota Palagruzona.

The City of Komiža continues to organise the maritime festival and its central regatta along the traditional 42-nautical-mile route between Komiža and Palagruža. The modern event is not a recreation of the economic necessity faced by earlier fishermen; its purpose is to preserve and practise traditional seamanship, boatbuilding and maritime knowledge.

Cicibela and the return of the falkuša

By the later 20th century, the original falkuša tradition was close to disappearing.

Cicibela, the last original example, was built in Komiža in 1925 by master boatbuilder Jakov Geričić. On 25 August 1986 she was wrecked in a storm in Porat Bay on neighbouring Biševo.

Rather than allowing the knowledge embodied in the boat to disappear with her, researchers and craftsmen studied the surviving remains in detail. Komiža-born scholar Joško Božanić and naval architect Velimir Salamon worked with fishermen, boatbuilders and the cultural organisation Ars Halieutica to document both the vessel and the wider fishing culture that had produced it.

In 1997, a new falkuša named Comeza-Lisboa was built as part of this work. The vessel represented Croatian maritime heritage at Expo 98 in Lisbon. Further falkuše followed, returning a boat type that had almost vanished to the waters of Komiža.

The revival matters because a working boat cannot be understood fully from drawings or museum objects alone. Sailing and rowing the reconstructed vessels allows skills associated with rigging, manoeuvring and handling the boat to continue to be practised.

When fishing moved into the factories

Fishing in Komiža eventually became an industrial story as well as a maritime one.

During the late 19th century, fish-processing plants began connecting the local catch with larger markets. The Croatian Technical Encyclopedia records Fratelli Mardessich, founded by brothers Kuzma and Josip Mardešić, as the first fish-processing and canning factory on the eastern Adriatic coast. It gives 1875 as the establishment date while noting that some sources instead give 1890.

By the beginning of the 20th century, the business employed around 200 workers and operated additional facilities outside Komiža. Other members of the Mardešić family established further processing businesses, and fish processing became a significant source of work ashore as well as at sea.

After the Second World War, surviving local operations were incorporated into Neptun, established in Komiža in 1946. The company caught, processed and preserved fish, later expanding into products including fishmeal and fish oil.

The factory connected generations of industrial employment with an older fishing economy, but it did not survive indefinitely. Production declined substantially during the 1990s, bankruptcy followed in 2003, and the company was finally liquidated in 2007.

The end of Neptun marked another major change in the relationship between Komiža and fishing. A town that had once supported hundreds of fishermen and substantial fish-processing employment entered the 21st century with a very different economy.

Why the sardine mattered

Almost every part of this history returns to the sardine.

Small pelagic fish could occur in large shoals and, crucially for an island community before refrigeration, sardines could be preserved with salt. That made it possible to keep catches from long fishing expeditions and sell them well beyond Komiža.

The requirements of sardine fishing helped shape the falkuša. Competition for the best sardine grounds helped produce the regattas to Palagruža. The volume of fish landed and preserved helped create processing businesses ashore.

Even the construction of Komuna, the Venetian fortress that now houses the Fishermen’s Museum, is connected with fishing. The Komiža Tourist Board records that the fortress was financed partly from income generated by fishing at Trešjavac, south of Biševo.

A small fish therefore influenced boats, architecture, employment and patterns of trade across several centuries.

The Fishermen’s Museum in Komiža

The clearest place to put these pieces together is the Fishermen’s Museum, or Ribarska zbirka, in the old Venetian fortress of Komuna on the waterfront.

The collection was established in 1986 and focuses specifically on the fishing and boatbuilding heritage of Komiža. Its holdings include original fishing and boat equipment, objects connected with fish processing and a collection of around 140 fishing knots. The falkuša also occupies a central place in the display.

This specificity is what makes the museum useful. It does not attempt to tell the maritime history of the whole Adriatic. It explains the working culture that developed in this particular harbour and the tools, boats and skills used by the people who depended on it.

Opening periods can vary, so current visitor information should be checked with the Komiža Tourist Board or City of Komiža before planning a visit. The museum remains housed in Komuna on the waterfront.

A fishing tradition that travelled

Komiža’s fishing history did not remain on Vis.

Emigration carried islanders and their maritime skills to other fishing regions, particularly along the Pacific coast of the Americas. The Croatian Technical Encyclopedia records that Komiža fishermen helped establish fishing communities on the Pacific coasts of both North and South America.

Individual stories make that connection more concrete. Members of the Mardešić family from Komiža became involved in the fishing and canning industries of the United States. Josip “Joe” Mardešić emigrated to San Pedro, California, in 1903 and in 1917 helped establish the French Sardine Company, which later became StarKist. Other Komiža emigrants became involved in salmon fishing farther north on the Pacific coast.

They did not reproduce the world of Palagruža on another ocean. But they carried with them knowledge of fishing, boats, organisation and fish processing developed in a community where the sea had been the principal workplace for generations.

Fishing in Komiža today

The fishing economy of Komiža no longer operates on the scale described in the historical record. The fleets of traditional falkuše, long stays at Palagruža with barrels of salt and the large Neptun processing operation belong to earlier periods.

That does not make fishing a dead tradition.

The harbour remains connected to working boats and contemporary maritime activity, while organisations, researchers, boatbuilders and crews continue to practise and transmit parts of the older maritime culture through the falkuša and Rota Palagruzona.

The distinction is important. Fishing heritage in Komiža should not be presented as a performance created for visitors, but neither should the present-day town be described as though its economy still functions exactly as it did a century ago.

Both histories occupy the same harbour.

A town shaped by fishing

Much of Komiža’s fishing history can still be read within a short distance of the waterfront.

Komuna was financed partly through fishing and now contains the museum dedicated to it. The falkuša survives through reconstruction and active sailing. The route towards Palagruža remains part of the town’s maritime memory, while the former fish-processing industry recalls a period when the catch provided substantial employment ashore.

Behind these visible traces lies a larger story of families whose incomes depended on weather, fishing grounds and whether boats returned with enough fish to justify the journey.

That is why the fishing history of Komiža is about more than boats or sardines.

For centuries, it helped determine how people worked, built, travelled, traded and, eventually, emigrated. The sea outside the harbour was not simply part of the view.

It was where much of the town made its living.

Sources & further reading

Hrvatska tehnička enciklopedija – Ribarska zbirka Komiža
An authoritative overview of Komiža’s fishing heritage, the Fishermen’s Museum, traditional fishing equipment, boatbuilding and the gajeta falkuša.

Hrvatska tehnička enciklopedija – Neptun, Komiža
A historical overview of the fishing and fish-processing industry in Komiža, including the Mardešić enterprises and the establishment of Neptun after the Second World War.

Joško Božanić – Komiška ribarska epopeja
An extensive academic study of Komiža’s fishing culture, including sardine fishing, traditional fishing grounds and the maritime traditions that shaped the community.

Joško Božanić – Gajeta Falkuša: Preserving Our Heritage for the Future
An English-language account of the origins, construction and cultural significance of Komiža’s traditional gajeta falkuša and the efforts to preserve this unique maritime heritage.

Museum Documentation Center Croatia – Ribarska zbirka Komiža
Official museum information about the Fishermen’s Museum in Komiža, its collection and the town’s importance as a historic fishing centre of the eastern Adriatic.