Cabin Fever (TV series)
| Cabin Fever | |
|---|---|
| Presented by | Derek Mooney |
| Country of origin | Ireland |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| Production | |
| Running time | 60 minutes |
| Release | |
| Original network | RTÉ |
| Original release | 3 June 2003 |
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 (though they had received a quick course in sailing technique prior to setting sail), who were to be put on the 27.4 metre (90 foot), 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.
The Cabin Fever was built in 1947 in France. It was heavily refurbished for the programme.
The Cabin Fever II was brought from Dartmouth. It was registered as the Johanna Lucretia.
The contestants — six men and five women — were selected from among 6,724 applicants. Placings:
Disaster struck however two weeks into the broadcast when, on 13 June 2003, the ship ran aground off Tory Island, a small island off the north-west coast near County Donegal. All the 9 remaining contestants1 and two crew were rescued by the nearby Arranmore Lifeboat, but the wooden sailing ship broke up on the rocks. Ironically the accident was not filmed by the RTÉ film crew; they had left the ship some hours earlier to catch some sleep after 15 hours continuous filming. The incident was however filmed by a local man who happened to have been recording the schooner's movements at the moment she ran aground. The Irish media made much tongue-in-cheek mention of the fact that the disaster occurred on Friday the 13th, a date often linked to supposed curses and disasters and also the fact that the ship's name had been changed for the programme: sailing lore suggests that any ship which is renamed prior to setting sail will meet with disaster.
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