If the Mr. Thorns was at the helm, then he should NOT have been clipped to anything but to strong points -- and NOT to a jackline running along the deck.

It would interesting to find-out what he had clipped to?

[On our boat there are four Whichard folding padeyes with back-up plates in the cockpit. At the helm, on either side of the wheel there are padeyes; and we we all have double tethers. I would expect that any person at the helm (and anyone else, in that sort of seaway) would have been double clipped.]

If he was properly clipped at the start of the knock down/roll, then I suppose Mr. Thorns while trapped under water, as the boat was inverted, MAY have tried to get clear and become entangled in the sinking rigging. It's possible that the "release" of him was from the single teather that was attached to the boat because of the reasons cited in the stories.

It's "easy" to speak of cutting him free or somehow looping a line around the rig to take some load or any number of other "coulda" thoughts while sitting in front of computer monitor ... but we weren't there.