My best guess is that the pin bounced out when i was trying to help my wife uncleat the jib and the pressure just ripped the rudder right off. It was just a perfect storm of a large wind gust, waves, and a hardware failure
You forgot too-flimsy engineering for the conditions.
c a marchaj & Dave Gerr both spoke against too-flimsy engineering, & the industry generally doesn't care ( boats which disappear don't make headlines: only ones noticed to be disappearing do, right? )
That boat needs to, if fixed, NEVER go into conditions as rough as what it was in.
It may well have been oversold/under-engineered for what the marketing said it was for.
Please consider investing in both Dave Gerr's "Elements of Boat Strength" & a book named "Surveying Yachts And Small Craft",
and then earn enough understanding to figure out how sound your boat is.
Those 2 books cost drastically less than a new boat, & they'll help you in any future boat-purchases you make, too.
Warning, though: nearly no boats are up to Gerr's scantlings ( thicknesses of different areas of a hull, for all who haven't been dredged through boatish lingo before ).
( other authors worth investing-in: Nigel Calder & Tom Cunliffe )