I don't know...
Imagine all your electrics go out.
Has the alternator failed? Will the engine just stop at some point? We should be at Alderny by now, but it's just open sea. This is the only boat we've seend for 15 minutes.
Decision : do we push on / turn back, knowing that the engine could stop when we're miles from anywhere, no vessels in sight and no radios to tell anyone, or do we aim for that boat right now, and put it down under full control.
Landing a fixed gear on the ocean can't be completely straight forward, so it sounds like he knew how to handle an aeroplane.
Very VERY easy for people to sit in their warm office / lounge and type on a forum that they wouldn't have done the same, but when you're there, and the decision that could save your wife's life, is yours to make, with absolutely no backup whatsoever, sometimes deciding on a bad outcome and going for it, is better than blundering into a worse situation.