Events for October 12, 2026 › Talks 2023

You’d think the toughest challenge of ultra-running would be the physical one, of covering marathon distances day in, day out, in sometimes extreme conditions. But no, says ultra-runner William Sichel, the hardest barrier is mental. He's applied the mental approach to big challenges in everyday life, building a business in Sanday and coping with health problems and bereavement. It's also taken him through the world’s hottest race in Badwater and then in 2014 the ultimate test: the 3,100 miler.

Nine years ago Ben Weber, born in Orkney, where his parents lived in Stronsay and then Stromness, decided to develop a new pattern of life; and on 17 January this year he reached the South Pole after a 58-day, 700-mile trek alone across Antarctic ice and snow. He returns to Orkney to tell the story.

In the days of sail and wooden ships, Stromness harbour welcomed tall ships from many far places. Stromness-built ships also lay at anchor in the harbour, with a few berthed alongside merchants’ piers. Len Wilson, former boatbuilder, tells the story of the tall ships and the men who sailed them, while naval architect Dennis Davidson of Murray Cormack Design describes Stanger’s and Copland’s shipyards in Stromness and some of the ships they built.