While your advice seems researched and correct, the general advice passed down by Boy Scouts is reach, throw, row, go.

First, try and reach something out to the victim for him to grab hold of. If that won't work, try to throw something for him to hang on to. If that fails, go to them in some kind of boat (though a surfboard may work too). If, and only if, all those things do not work, swim out to rescue them.

[Edit: after having read the article, I realize that this is advice in what to do for someone experiencing aquatic distress, not someone who is drowning. My apologies.