Chief Stewardess Sasha Murray, 29, was one of 15 survivors when the Bayesian dramatically sank on Monday taking seven lives, including that of owner Mike Lynch and his 18‑year-old daughter, Hannah.

Ms Murray and her family have divulged no details of her lucky escape, during which she injured her leg.

Locals in Sligo were at first unaware she had been in Italy working on the vessel, but those who know the Murray family were not surprised to learn of Sasha Murray’s presence on the Bayesian superyacht. 

"We were all water babies," a family friend told the Irish Mail on Sunday this weekend. "It is no surprise to me that Sasha ended up on the water. It ran right through the whole family."

A manslaughter investigation has been opened into the deaths of seven people in the sinking of a luxury yacht off the coast of Sicily, an Italian prosecutor has saidhttps://t.co/JWoab5BRNa

— RTÉ News (@rtenews) August 24, 2024

In fact, Ms Murray’s family on both sides are steeped in adventure sports and count scuba diving and water skiing champions in their ranks.

As a result, Ms Murray and her brother Killian grew up surrounded by adventure-seeking figureheads who appear to have inspired similar interests in the next generation.

But this adrenaline-fuelled lifestyle has also spawned a double tragedy for the extended Murray family.

On May 30, 1998, Ms Murray’s father Fionn was killed in an aircraft crash during an airborne treasure hunt.

Her maternal grandfather, Holger Schiller, who was piloting the light aeroplane, also perished in the accident at Sligo’s Cummeen Strand.

One witness, Michael Fletcher, who was walking on the beach, later described the aircraft’s final moments in an interview with the Sligo Champion newspaper: "As it came in closer it was clearly losing height."

"When it was directly above me I heard an almighty roar, like a tractor trying to start up and then, within a matter of seconds, it had nose-dived.

"There was very little I could do for the occupants. All I could do was say a prayer over them."

Years later, in 2005, the family sued the US manufacturer and were awarded €550,000 in damages by the High Court.

Prior to his death, aged 33, Fionn Murray had been a champion racing driver. In a glittering career, he won every available title at the Formula Ford level and in 1990 took second place at the prestigious Brands Hatch Festival.

He left behind his wife Jessica and their two children. At the time Sasha was just three and her brother was one. Both children would go on to enjoy motor racing from an early age.

They were also schooled in sailing and water sports at the Sligo Yacht Club where their grandfather Kevin Murray – Fionn’s father – was a renowned figure. Kevin was a well-known businessman in Sligo and the majority owner of Brooks Hanley builders’ providers.

Originally from, Balgeeth, Kilmessan, Co. Meath, he lived in Strandhill Road, Sligo and had nine children – all of whom engaged in daring pursuits.

Kevin Murray kept a 50-foot, 270 horsepower motor cruiser called the MV Chumvi at the Sligo Yacht Club, and used it to assist in many search and rescue missions. 

During one daring rescue, which led to a bravery award, Kevin Murray, accompanied by his eldest son Alan, plucked stranded sailors from the rocks of the Black Rock lighthouse in stormy seas at considerable risk to themselves.

On another occasion in 1970, the MV Chumvi led the Asgard into port for the famous vessel’s first-ever visit to Sligo. Now on display in the National Museum at Collins Barracks, the Asgard played a key gun-running role in advance of the 1916 rising and later became Ireland’s first national sail training vessel. 

Kevin Murray was also a pilot, as was his wife, Peg, and local newspapers dubbed the family the "Flying Murrays" in headlines.

One Donegal Democrat photo from 1964 shows Kevin and Peg and their nine children (including Fionn) sitting on the wing of their Swallow plane.

Kevin Murray was also a motor sport champion and water skiing fanatic and one of the founders of the Sligo Waterski Club.

He built his racing cars – the Murray’s Mercury series – himself, and was a four-time winner of the Hewison Trophy, the longest-running motor race in Ireland.

During the blizzards of 1947, he used a US army truck, purchased after the war, as a snow plough to help ESB restore power and distribute food supplies receiving council tributes for this work. Kevin died in 2000 aged 91, two years after the accident that claimed the life of his son, Fionn. 

Sasha’s mother Jessica Schiller was also a racing fanatic and worked as a mechanic for Fionn Murray’s team. Jessica’s parents, Holger and Erika, are part of a German mining and granite dynasty from Weidenberg, Bavaria that dates back to 1890.

In the 1970s, Holger and Erika fell in love with Ireland during a holiday and bought Ardtarmon Castle, near Lissadell House in Sligo. Holger placed an ad in a local newspaper seeking a German-speaking architect to renovate the property. Today, Ardtarmon Castle is run by Erika and provides self-catering luxury accommodation to visitors.

It is also home to an estate agency called Schiller and Schiller, which is run by Bjorn, an uncle of Sasha.

In 1996, Bjorn won the Formula Ford 1600 "Star of Tomorrow" championship in the Phoenix Park, with Fionn Murray as manager and Kevin Murray as the engine builder.

Two days before Monday’s yacht tragedy, Bjorn presented the Fionn Murray Memorial Trophy to the winner of an annual race held in his honour in Mondello.

* This article was originally published on Extra.ie.