Sponsored Sailors

Sailing sisters: ANNA and CHARLOTTE DOBSON

First introduced into sailing on family picnics at the age of 6 months, Anna started sailing herself at the age of 8. Her first boat was an Optimist dinghy, which she raced in events all over the United Kingdom and Europe. She quickly graduated to the Scottish Optimist Squad and then to the United Kingdom National Squad. She raced in 4 National Championships and at international events in Malta, France and the Netherlands.

As Anna grew she left her Optimist and moved to the Topper Class, quickly establishing herself as one of the leading young female sailors. She won the Scottish Topper series outright in 2005, beating all the boys as well as the girls and was the British topper Ladies National Champion.

Progressing to the Women's Single Person Olympic dinghy, the Laser Radial, Anna was soon selected for the United Kingdom National Squad and in 2006 was selected as Great Britain's representative at the ISAF Youth World Championship where she was 9th overall and won one of the races.

Picking up on her positive experiences with the "head game" aspects of racing, Anna is now studying psychology at Glasgow University and her international dinghy racing career is in hold while she concentrates on academics. Nonetheless, she is keeping her hand in with some racing activity and uses her experiences as a coach in the Scottish Laser Radial class coaching programme.

Charlotte Dobson was an Olympic hopeful for Beijing 2008 but was knocked into second place by Penny Clark. You can read all about Charlotte's progress on her principal sponsor's website:

http://www.tiso.com/about/sponsorship/athletes/charlotte_dobson/