Once in a big storm, I can't even imagine the beating one would take inside that tiny craft, sliding down the face of a monster wave, crashing into the trough at the bottom, getting rolled. But perhaps his hull and rig design isn't subject to the same broaching and capsizing forces as a larger monohull...
I'm curious to read more about the design of the boat, his equipment, procedures and planning. Though it's best not to judge from a mere photo, there were several things visible in the images of the craft and video of his attempted departure that seemed counter to good seamanship.
That boat's not tipping over.
I did a trans-Atlantic about 10 years ago (Liverpool, england to Salvador, Brazil) as part of the clipper challenge race. We had a few force 8 and above experiences between the training and the actual trip. The boats were a bit bigger (68 foot, from memory) but either way it's amazing how resilient they are.
Once we went right over surfing down a wave (had a broach). At one point the boat was standing upright on the bow and was over so far that the mast was almost level with water so I could walk up it. The team spent a lot of time stitching those sails together again :-)
Wow, did you flip over end over end then? How did you become oriented with the direction of the wave? Did the boat just right itself?
The skipper decided to dump the line that was holding the spinnaker pole back, which turned out to be a terrible idea. Obviously that line has all the force on it, so the spinnaker pole shot forward and snapped in half on the forestay (thank God it didn't take the rigging out). It didn't really ease the pressure and the kite was still flying.
Luckily (or not) the kite ripped under the force. It was still pulling us along but because enough pressure had come off everything by this stage we were able to get the main down.
We ended up having to drop the kite in the sea and then spent a couple of hours getting it back on board.
It was a pretty exciting afternoon :-)
I'm in the Maritimes (south east Canada) and I know it can be incredibly rough here 10m (33 foot) waves are normal off Newfoundland. It's so bad an entire 25,000 ton oil rig sank in a storm a few decades ago.
One rogue wave could smash that little 42 inch yacht to bits the size of confetti.
I wish the Tiny Yacht guy luck but it's going to be rough!
Is this the Bay of Fundy?
I remember sailing out of Hilton Head area (SE Georgia US) on a thirty footer and damn can waves just make the horizon vanish let alone that feeling you get when you don't see land. Throw in sail is not something I would want to manage by myself.