FIVE PEOPLE HAVE been rescued after a yacht ran aground in Skerries, Dublin earlier this morning.

The group on the boat, who are believed to be French nationals, sent out a mayday alert shortly before 5am.

Skerries Coast Guard unit and lifeboat, Rescue 116 and Howth lifeboat were alerted to the incident.

Speaking to RTÉ Radio One’s Morning Ireland, Ivan Longmore, station officer at the Coast Guard, said they received a call from a sailing vessel requiring immediate assistance at 4.50am.

When the Skerries lifeboat crew went to the station, he said, they could see the yacht aground outside the harbour.

“They were able to go out in a dinghy and were able to bring the five persons ashore,” he said.

Those aboard the yacht were a family of five, a man, a woman, a 12-year-old boy, a 14-year-old girl and a 16-year-old girl, according to Longmore.

He said it appears the yacht had broken its moorings and the tides took them out onto the rocks.

Longmore added that the family was still at Skerries lifeboat station.

“[There are] no signs of any of them in any distress and they, for the moment, don’t seem to need any medical assistance.”