The Flight Safety school includes full touchdown tail rotor failures. I recall the entry at 1000' doing a straight in. I don't recall doing 180 tail rotor failures - full autos -yes.
It appears they were headed north, back to land, with a very stiff wind from the south. Impact was heading west. Tough to get around 180 degrees under the best of circumstances from 800ft.
One other thing to keep in mind about overwater operations. Judging your height above the water can be difficult, even for experienced pilots. There have been a number of little ships that had engine failures and misjudged the height to begin the deceleration.
Going through Naval Flight School, we were taught that when descending in your parachute, wait until you feet touched the water before letting go of your chute. That policy was adopted in WW2 as a result of the earlier policy of dropping out of your chute at 5 to 10 ft. and the resulting deaths of pilots who misjudged their height above the waves.