I was chatting to my wife about the incident, after we'd both watched this story.
For her part, she was furious at the level of spin and froth about the skill of the pilot that was published in the days after the ditching. In her words, they built him up to be a hero! I'd just finished saying that he must've had reasonable hands and feet to pull off a night ditching in a 2m swell and she said "well, if he's such a good pilot, how did he end up having to ditch then?'.
Fair question I suppose.
What would be the airspeed/fuel flow penalty be for fuelling to full tanks on a 6 hr leg in a Westwind?