Yeah, I call bullshit on that.
He didn't need to destroy the boat they were on to duplicate it. He didn't even need to be hurt by it. And he was able to fully duplicate a bowl of soba complete with the sleeping drug he didn't initially know was in it, all fully functional. Yet apparently he can't become other people without them dying. As if there were some sort of arbitrary distinction between a living thing and a non-living thing.