Multi-rotors of that size can handle some pretty serious winds (10-15 ish MPH+, more if you're willing to potentially lose it to save a life). And since the craft itself isn't in the water, it doesn't have to deal with the seas.
I'd imagine a drone that size can handle 25-30+ MPH.
I routinely fly my DJI Mavic in 20MPH winds and it handles fine. You have to be mindful of how long it'll take to fly back upwind, but actually keeping it in the air is a piece of cake.
There's a huge difference in stability between sub-$100 throwaway drones many of us have played with and "serious" units in the $1,000+ range. Even on sport mode, you'd have to work pretty hard to crash a mavic in an open field (i.e., short of flying it sideways into a tree). I'm sure commercial, life-saving drones that cost 2 orders of magnitude more are on yet another level still.
Indeed. But from the picture on the site, it looks like they were about 150 feet above the average sea level. It would take quite the rogue wave to hit the drone at that altitude.
Sea spray (fine droplets of salt water) would indeed have an effect, but more over the long term than immediate problems since the motors are brushless. Brushless motors are not terribly susceptible to shorts from water, and the only other vulnerable component - the battery - would be hard to short out by sea spray alone.
Drone flying towards drowning person is one issue, but how accurately can it drop that "inflattable rescue device" ? It would be a real bummer if the drone made its way to a victim only to miss it by 50 yards.
Well, thankfully an uninflated raft will have a rather low surface area, meaning you can drop it with reasonable accuracy even in strong winds. I'd also hope the teams deploying these rafts are practicing in real conditions, and have backup teams on ski-dos ready to roll.
That looked like a relatively calm day but that's rare, especially coupled with rough seas.
Don't like conspiracies but that almost looked to good to be true.