"771NAS will still offer a menu of maritime activities." Really? What with? ALL UK service sea Kings are being canned by 2016.
Unless you have spotted an order for escort destoyers that the rest of us have missed, then yes, every Merlin has a winch and, as we have been told 345,750,044,581 times on pprune, pusser's pirates will always equip and train for SAR.