It's difficult to say with any certainty (as most of the information was highly classified, and still isn't readily available), but it's quite possible that the RAF was using it's autogyros for insertion and recovery of personnel behind enemy lines. Incidentally, I live a couple of miles from one of the airfields used for those missions, it's called Heigham Holmes and is basically a low island of (relatively) solid ground in the middle of miles of marshland. the only way in or out is a single track road that crosses the River Thurne on a floating bridge. I know a couple of local history enthusiasts who've tried their best to find out what went on there during the war, and they've yet to come up with anything definite (and normally if it's there to be found, they'll find it).
Getting back to the point, RAF Coastal Command had several models of airborne lifeboat that were slung underneath larger patrol aircraft (Wellingtons, Warwicks, Lancasters, and B-17s for definite, there may have been others) and dropped by parachute if people were spotted in the water. Some of them were designed by Uffa Fox (very well respected yacht designer and builder based in Cowes on the Isle of Wight), and they came equipped with a mast, sails, and a pamphlet explaining how to sail, in case the peoplle who needed it didn't know. I think some of them may also have had Stuart-Turner two stroke inboard petrol engines (the one in one of our local museums does, but I don't know if that's an original fit or if it's a wartime model or post-war).
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