Cabin Fever

Cabin Fever is an RTÉ reality TV show which was meant to have been broadcast over eight weeks starting on 3 June 2003. Disaster struck however two weeks into the broadcast when, on Friday 13 June 2003, the ship ran aground off Tory Island off the north-west coast near County Donegal. Cabin Fever consisted of a group of eleven contestants chosen specially for the show, most of whom had no sailing experience, who were to be put on the 27.4 metre, two-masted schooner with a professional crew of two. The wind-powered sailing ship would then sail around the Irish coast. Each week one contestant was scheduled to quite literally "walk the plank" after being voted off the ship by TV viewers. The final surviving contestant was to be considered the winner and would receive €100,000. The show was named after cabin fever, the claustrophobic reaction that takes place when a person or group is isolated and/or shut in a small space, with nothing to do, for an extended period.