Teams gathered on a wild and windy Eriskay to register for this year’s Hebridean Challenge, and the faces arriving at the first Community Hall of the week were a mix of nervous newbies and old hands. Claire Gordon is back for her fifth Heb Challenge with the team of “Bog and Ben�, the ‘Ben’ in question being Bennie McDonald, another Heb veteran. Joe Faulkner, a former Heb soloist and pairs competitor, is back with regular team partner Louise Wilkinson. Both “Hebyoneers� and “Pirates of the Hebridean� return this year, albeit with changed lineups from previous races, and most of last year’s “Laughing Dogs� and “Rusty Snails� teams return in the guise of teams “Not Davy Broni� and “This IS Davy Broni�. The story of this team’s involvement is one of the epic tales that are commonplace for the Heb - Davy, a veteran of many Hebridean and Western Isles Challenges, is only racing for the team for 3 days, as he has to leave the Islands citing a ‘prior engagement’. Only a fortnight before the race, one of their original team members pulled out with and injury, unfortunately this was the team member who owned the van they were to use. Contacting their local hire firm, they were told there were no vans currently available, but that the company had a van body with a blown engine that they were expecting a new engine for. Once that was secured, their paddler Martin Hadlington then set about the seemingly innocuous task of fitting a roofrack to the van, a job which would end up taking close to 5 hours.
From the Heb virgins, there’s a notable entry from UBC, a local building firm, who gifted their two four-man teams with an apparently ‘very generous’ sum of money to pay their entry and kit. As always, the Forces have their representatives, the US military in the ‘Air Commandos’ team and the UK with a team from 673 Squadron AAC. One of this year’s race sponsors, Shelterbox, also have their representatives in the race, raising money for the charity while racing.
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