Yes, but he had lots of landings. A water forced landing is a lot easier than a land forced landing -- no obstacles. The basic drill is keep the wings level and land as you would normally.
If I land my jet with 11 degrees NUp there will be a load scraping noise, followed by Oh S*&t, followed by tea & biscuits. What I find disappointing is the airlines who discourage visual approaches. The reason quoted is becasue so many, even captains, screw them up and either make glide landings or hopefully G/A's. One is consdiered a no-no, the other a waste of time & money. There's no time to train the most basic manoeuvre, so don't let them do it. In answer to "why is it a problem when they'v e passed base training?" is that an on line visual is never a level circuit. It's the descending circuit, or dare I say straight in without ILS, that causes the probs. All this wizardry and it's difficult. I can't remember being trained to do visuals around the Greek islands, it was just bthe way it was. That was the norm, and Mk.1 eyeball and an altimeter was all you had. A DME near the rwy was a luxury. No night landings without PAPI's etc. No wonder they want to pay us peanuts. They think we are useless, but who's fault is that?