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the relatively small Russian and Chinese navies.
The splashdown method of landing was utilized for Mercury, Gemini and Apollo. There were a few cases in which Russian manned spacecraft landed in inland waters, but these were unintentional.
While the water the spacecraft landed on would cushion it to some degree, the impact could still be quite violent for the astronauts. On Apollo 12, a camera mounted by one of the command module's windows broke loose and hit Alan Bean on the head, rendering him unconscious.
There are several disadvantages for splashdowns, foremost among them being the danger of the spacecraft flooding and sinking. This happened to Gus Grissom when the hatch of his Mercury 4 capsule malfunctioned and blew prematurely. The capsule was lost and Grissom nearly drowned.
Another problem associated with splashdown is that if the capsule comes down far from any recovery forces the crew are exposed to greater danger. As an example, Scott Carpenter in Mercury 7 overshot the assigned landing zone by 400-km. This was caused by a retro attitude misalignment of the spacecraft automatic guidance system and a late manual retrofire. It took three hours before a recovery helicopter reached his location. This can be mitigated by having several vessels on standby for recovery in several different locations, but this is obviously quite an expensive option.
On early Mercury flights, a helicopter attached a cable to the capsule, lifted it from the water and delivered it to a nearby ship. After the sinking of Liberty Bell 7, this was changed. All later Mercury, Gemini and Apollo capsules had a flotation collar (similar to a rubber liferaft) attached to the spacecraft to increase their buoyancy. The spacecraft would then be brought along side a ship and lifted onto deck by crane.
After the flotation collar is attached, a hatch on the spacecraft is usually opened. At that time, some astronauts decide to be hoisted aboard a helicopter for a ride to the recovery ship and some decided to stay with the spacecraft and be lifted aboard ship via crane.
Space capsules are not very good boats and many astronauts got seasick.
Future American space capsules will probably use a parasail type parachute to make softer landings on dry land.
The coordinates for the following spacecraft are estimated. No official numbers could be found, just small recovery zone diagrams or distance descriptions to nearby islands: