Dame Ellen MacArthur made a visit to the Sick Children’s Hospital in Edinburgh today, where she met with young people under going treatment for cancer or leukaemia.

Dame MacArthur, who became famous after breaking the world record for sailing solo around the world in 2005 now spends a great deal of her time raising funds for her two charities.

At the hospital she explained: "I'm involved with this Sick Kids Fundraising event through CISCO. They’re doing a fundraising event here and the reason they invited me up to get involved with the event is because of my work with my charity, The Ellen McArthur Cancer Trust.

“Through that charity, I’ve been sailing with young people in recovery from cancer and leukaemia. I find it absolutely inspirational. Last summer alone I sailed with 250 young people from all over the country.”

“The sailing takes up about one day a week of my time during the summer, and I try to go on every yacht trip. We’ve got six boats sailing in any one week, and so I hop from boat to boat, it’s just fantastic.”

Ellen went on to explain that the purpose of the sailing trips isn’t to pass on sailing skills. In fact, the trips the trust provides are simply to help young people build their self confidence and to get reacquainted with the routines of everyday life.

“It’s just about having fun. It’s about the young people being in an environment where they are all together, where they all understand what each other have been through, they don’t have to talk about it if they don’t want to talk about it, but if they do want to talk about it then everyone on the boat understands.

“It’s an incredible atmosphere. Some young people struggle with their self confidence after their treatment and what the trips do is help them step back into normal life.”

“At the end of the four days, no-one wants to leave the boat. It’s absolutely awesome. No-one wants to go home.”

Earlier in the day she fired the starting gun for a fundraising race organised by 150 employees of information technology firm CISCO systems. The race, which will culminate in a black tie dinner at the Balmoral Hotel this evening, aims to raise £20,000 pounds to buy vital equipment at the hospital.