The boat featured on RTÉ's Cabin Feverreality programme has run aground on rocks off Tory Island, Co Donegal.
A spokesman for the rescue services said the 27 metre long
Challenger
was now 50 per cent broken upand all nine contestants and two crew members were ashore.
"Three of them were taken away by helicopter and one of them decided to swimashore," he added. "There won't be much of the boat left by morning."
The boat got into difficulties in early afternoon. TheAir Corp was alerted at 2.35 pm and the first sevenpeople were taken off the boat shortly after 3.00 p.m.The boat began to break up badly just after 6.00 p.m.and within an hour the wreckage was drifting in thewater in Tory Sound.
The Arranmore lifeboat attempted to pull the ship off the rocks and portable pump was dropped on to the ship from an Aer Corps rescue helicopter, but it could not be saved.
A spokesman for Coco Productions, which makes the programme for RTÉ, said they were relieved that nobody was hurt.
In a statement, RTÉ said it greatly regretted the incident. Ms Clare Duignan, director of programmes, said: "We are greatly relieved that, most importantly, all the cast and crew are safe and sound. Any programming considerations are absolutely secondary to that."
RTÉ confirmed that the next episode of the series will be broadcast, as scheduled, on Sunday evening.
The ship set sail last Sunday with ten contestants. It planned to travel around the coast of Ireland for eight weeks as they competed for a cash prize. Producers billed it as the biggest television event in Ireland this summer.