Well,
looking at that footage, those are normal procedures where I operate (Portuguese Air Force 751 Search and Rescue Squadron, flying the EH101 Merlin). This is why I made the comment, we are not qualified to land on any kind of ships, and we don't do it. My first operational mission as a co-pilot in 2003 was a Medevac from an American USMC Logistics vessel, 900 ft long, with a heliport where two helicopters could land side-by-side, but we didn't land because our Sops tell us not to do it... It actually felt very stupid to be hovering at 30 ft on calm seas and doing winching ops when we had below us a heliport larger than the one we usually operated from. Probably a Portuguese Navy guy would think differently of me (they land Lynx on ships all the time). But maybe that is also the reason those guys didn't land.
You have a point about the distance to the beach, that is very close, and you also have a point that sometimes, rescue operations are launched so that the TV guys can get nice footage of winching ops. I don't know if that was the case, but anyway, thet got out safely...