Yes, but maybe he thought he could do it vfr.
The metar suggests it was scattered and broken; what did the tafs suggest. The weather was clearing from the north and would have been weakening south bound.
Optomistic there is no doubt but perhaps as i said earlier he was sliding a hole when he lost control. However was it pitch black by the time he arrived and if so was there a moon? If it was pitch black even if vmc was maintained did he realise descending over a black sea is very different to the night training work he did over the land.
Night vfr over the sea, no moon, patchy cloud and to all intensive purposes it is imc and an instrument flight the whole way with the risk of an upset if you try and transition to flying visually even for a pilot on the money.
Do
Just seen your post and an interesting observation. Actually i think if you really understand the systems AND nothing goes wrong with them the cirrus is sufficiently good that you could make the flight in imc with no instrument flight training. I have put the ap in at a few hundred feeg, flown a route, changed the route in flight, set up for a vectored ils and taken the ap out at dh touching nothing other than the power lever the whole way. There are two enormous caveats and you need to be 100% on the systems and the aircraft performance. Dont try it - ever.