I had a DJI Air (~$800) last spring off our monohull. Notice I said "had". While the drone was very stable the operator (me) made a small screw up and ended up dumping it in the water (my second flight off the boat). My advice is that if you bring a drone that you up front accept the very real possibility that it may not be coming home with you. In my case I was bringing it back onto the tail of our Oceanis 45 (tailgate down but I was trying to land in the cockpit). It didn't want to come in heading forward because I had the anti-collision settings turned on. So I had to turn it sideway and "crab" it in. During that process I got a big gust of wind when it was less than a foot above the deck and it moved very slightly and I compensated the wrong direction causing a prop to hit something which deflected it right out of the boat and into the water. You can imagine the conversations from my Admiral the rest of the trip! Here is my advice:
1. I had logged somewhere between 5 and 10 hours total on the drone before bringing it down with me. I felt pretty competent flying it until I got over the water and into the wind. Yea... that's a different scenario entirely. I should have done some practice off the dock down there before taking it out on the boat.
2. A monohull is too tight to use as a landing platform. A cat you might have a chance.
3. If I were to do it over I would not fly it off my boat. I would fly it off of land only. After flying it for a zillion hours I might consider the boat as a takeoff/land platform. I hate to say that by the way - my plan was to get some great shorts of the boat under sail. If it was me I would get these shots today by taking off/landing on land and have someone in the dingy fly it out and back. It's just not worth the risk.
4. I would leave the prop guards in place. That would have saved me.
5. If you insist on taking off/landing on the boat I would turn off the anti-collision settings. The settings are such that the drone will refuse to fly if it's within a small handful of feet from a detected object. The detection is forward and backward. But not sideways. I don't remember exactly how close you have to be but I think five feet. On a mono this make it very difficult.
6. A battery will run the DJI Air for close to 20 minutes under ideal circumstances. But not in the wind. You might have maybe 15 minutes. Get a second battery. It won't increase your air time but you can do two trips. After that your nerves will be shot all to he** so you'll be done for the day.


I didn't know you could get insurance from DJI. If that's the case maybe I'll try it again!