Might not be a bad idea, but there are many ways to get hurt on a sailboat.
Sticking one's arm through the wheel is definately a risky move even when
not using an autopilot.

Doug
s/v Callista

"Daniel" wrote in message
...
I recently witnessed a possible accident with the autopilot in my boat.
While going under autopilot a guest accidentally put her arm into the wheel
among the spokes and was caught at a wheel turn between a spoke and the
tiller post. The servo is quite powerful so that she was able to withdraw
the arm only after switching off the unit which took few seconds - still
too much. Fortunately only few bruises and some panic but I fear that it
could have gone worse. Any experience? Wouldn't it be safer to put a
panic shut-off switch somewhere? I mean the little red mushroom to push in
case of problems. I have never seen such things mentioned in autopilot
manuals.

Daniel