Wow! That must have been an incredible voyage! Amazing that your friend never mentioned anything about their relative....so very sad but still a significant piece of history.
Apparently, he was very close to his uncle and the loss hit him very hard. I was shocked when I read this very small paragraph in the book.
His wife confirmed it was indeed his uncle and out of respect, I’ve never brought it up to him.
The funny thing is I came across the information because the author appeared on a local TV show and had a copy of the galley proof for the book. We talked about the loss of the Fitz and he gave me the proof to read. Somewhere, I still have it packed away.