Jigsaw
Special
Yes, but more so the surface vessel and less so the helicopter. Whilst it might seem like a nice idea to be picked up by a helicopter, you try being in a dinghy on a hitherto nice calm night with an L2 hovering at 40' directly above you. Apparently the dinghies were getting blown towards the platform legs by the downwash. After the first 3 winched off, it was decided to stand the heli down and wait for the surface vessel, which was not far behind. But I heard through the grapevine that it took nearly an hour before the heli arrived - that must have seemed a long time when the platform was only 500m away.
Jigsaw seems a good idea but it does mean fewer resources, and probably those resources further away from you when you ditch near a platform. By contrast, when there was a standby boat for each installation, it would have been on site within a few minutes.
If its true that it was nearly an hour, and had these guys ended up in the water, there would have been hypothermia at the least.
Helis are better when its wild or you are in the water, boats are better when its calm and you're in the dinghy.
HC