They were not being stupid. They were in protected waters with chase boats around to save them. What better time to learn high wind techniques?

If you watch the vid of the 20' they are much more careful when they need to put their rudders back down.
the hobie guy didn't even uncleat the jib. you are extremely vulnerable resetting the rudders in that wind. You need to respect that obviously. You loose less time rounding up and placing the crew forward(hobies tip over backwards easily) that trying to reset while on a crazy reach. on a hobie you need to raise your transoms up onto a can or on the trailer and cranck down the cams until you can barely pull the rudder up by hand from the tip of the blade. With the cams that tight you need to keep new cams in there or the cam will deform when you go to lift the windward rudder up whilst sailing. If the cam stays locked down you won't be able to relock the rudder until you stop the boat and pry the cam back up with a screwdriver; a tool that you should have in you pouch.
when i lived in Santa Cruz in the 70's many of the points regattas where held in similar type winds. One race at Coyote point had gust to 45mph at the committee boat. Also the winds out past the mile buoy were quite strong all summer, but with an ocean swell. We all used to go out there every weekend.

over and out.