I think we must be talking at cross purposes here. The MoC crews trained by GFS had certainly never seen an overwater hover before, and to a man, had not a scrap of SAR experience. Perhaps there are two groups within the MoC establishment, which received training from these two separate sources?
Not that it matters - as has already been pointed out on this thread - the real credit goes to the crews involved for performing their first 'real' SAR. China's coastline is sorely lacking in SAR assets - apart from, of course, a large part of the South China Sea, which is covered by the GFS, as pointed out by Shy Torque above.