NJ, my conclusions may appear to you to be hasty and ill considered but I do have some experienced in coastal navigation ( I believe I have a piece of paper from the UK's school of navigation somewhere that says that I can do it). I also have experience of being in charge of yachts and boats up to 80 feet long.
One of the principles of avoiding hitting rocks is the concept of a 'position circle' whereby you know where you think you are and you then draw a circle around it that point to allow for errors in calculating that position. It follows that if the rocks aren't within that circle then you almost certainly won't hit them.
There would be no excuse if it was poor visibility, I have navigated in far trickier waters than this case in thick fog and without modern navigation aids, as have thousands of amateur sailors, without hitting rocks.
The captain was in charge of the vessel, the land was in plain sight with good visibility, he had adequate crew to post lookouts( if he hadn't he shouldn't have gone near a hazard). His only excuse would have been if he was not in charge of the ship through illness, which he obviously wasn't otherwise he wouldn't have scarpered so quickly.
We don't even need a jury for this one.