SAS
..."get low and slow and let the whole World know...get SAR coming....and get prepared to ditch if anything whatsoever happens to show this is for real!"
No SAS, that would be a really bad idea, assuming you have multiple indications of no oil circulating (gauges + seperate lights etc) however you could be right in that, in desperation, a crew might cling to that idea especially if they had read on Pprune that lots of Old and Bold pilots were "recommending" it.
If that were the correct thing to do, it would say so in the RFM. Low and Slow = high power and low cooling air. In general, a gearbox doesn't give out gracefully, there is too much energy involved. Most likely it will seize rapidly with minimal warning and rip itself out of the airframe, in the mean time imparting a lot of angular acceleration to the passengers (ie breaking a few neck, banging a few heads) before departing from the fuselage and allowing it to drop like a brick. Do you know what it feels like to be in a helicopter that is dropped from even 50' whilst spinning rapidly? (neither do I but I'm sure its not nice). Don't think the water is soft - its like concrete under those circumstances. Then you have unconscious passengers + broken fuselage + water = not survivable.
Bottom line is a controlled ditching is always the best option, even if you don't like the look of the sea state - unless you are seconds away from somewhere solid to land on.
If the sea state means that the RFM instruction "Land Immediately" translates into "prepare to meet your maker", then perhaps you shouldn't be flying there in the first place.
HC