Martin Evening Patch Tool Trick

Back around the time of CS6, Martin Evening demonstrated a cool trick with the Patch tool.  This was in Destination mode, and what he did was to somehow interupt moving the selection with the Patch tool, and go into Free Transform to resize the patch before committing it and having Photoshop merge the patch into the background.  He used a situation very like the image below with a fishing boat (I think it was a trawler so very similar to below.

I have been trying to make this work on and off for ages, but without success.  As you can see, the downsized boat has not been blended with the background. 

I am almost sure this was on YouTube because I can almost hear Martin's voice in my head (he does speak very nicely), but it might have been on Peachpit, where some of his content used appear.  I have his Photoshop for Photographers CS6 which is the right time frame, but the trick does not show up in that. 

The nearest I have got is to copy the layer, and on the new layer select the boat and use Free Transform to resize.  This unselects the Patch tool, so select it again and move it being careful to align the horizon before letting go with the mouse, but the example below is maybe ever so slightly better than the image above.

If you know how this works, or can work it out, I would love to hear.  

Thanks.