Salute SARBloke!
I flew combat SAR two tours in SEA, and I get your point. Never worked the ocean, but in the jungle we had to get a fix within a 100 yards to get the Jolly close.
Our basic procedure was to use the ADF feature of our radio and then do a cloverleaf to get another LOP crossing 90 deg from first pass. A visual was worth a million dollars of avionics, just as it is today in the A2A arena.
I have a bad feeling about this one.
Gums sends...